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THE  A.  E.  F. 


GENERAL  PERSHING 
COMMANDING  THR  A.  E.  F. 


JHE  A.  E.  Fy 

WITH  GENERAL  PERSHING 
AND  THE  AMERICAN  FORCES 


BY 

HEYWOOD  BROUN 


D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  LONDON 

1919 


1^-' 


,\^ 


COPTEIGHT,  1918,  BY 

D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


TO 

RUTH  HALE 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    The  Big  Pond 1 

11.    TheA.  E.  F 11 

III.  Lafayette,  Nous  Voila       ....  25 

IV.  The  Franco-American  Honeymoon    .  36 
V.    Within  Sound  of  the  Guns      ...  56 

VI.    Sunny  France 74 

VII.    Pershing 92 

VIII.    Men  with  Medals 102 

IX.    Letters  Home 115 

X.    IVIarines 126 

XL    Field  Pieces  and  Big  Guns      .     .     .  136 

XII.    Our  Aviators  and  a  Few  Others       .  147 

XIII.  Hospitals  and  Engineers  ....  164 

XIV.  We  Visit  the  French  Army     .     .     .  177 
XV.    Verdun 192 

XVI.    We  Visit  thb  British  Army     .     .     .  200 

XVII.    Back  from  Prison 221 

XVIII.    Finishing  Touches 227 

XIX.    The  American  Army  Marches  to  the 

Trenches 250 

XX.    Trench  Life 260 

XXI.    The  Veterans  Return 281 


Some  of  the  material  in  this  book  is  reprinted 
through  the  courtesy  of  the  New  York  Tribune. 


THE  A.  E.  R 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  BIG  POND 

"VoiLA  UN  sousMARiN,"  Said  a  sailor,  as  he 
stuck  his  head  through  the  doorway  of  the 
smoking  room.  The  man  with  aces  and  eights 
dropped,  but  the  player  across  the  table  had 
three  sevens,  and  he  waited  for  a  translation. 
It  came  from  the  little  gun  on  the  afterdeck. 
The  gun  said  "Bang!"  and  in  a  few  seconds 
it  repeated  "Bang!"  I  heard  the  second  shot 
from  my  stateroom,  but  before  I  had  adjusted 
my  lifebelt  the  gun  fired  at  the  submarine  once 
more. 

A  cheer  followed  this  shot.  No  Yale  eleven, 
or  even  Harvard  for  that  matter,  ever  heard 
such  a  cheer.  It  was  as  if  the  shout  for  the 
first  touchdown  and  for  the  last  one  and  for 
all  the  field  goals  and  long  gains  had  been 

1 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

thrown  into  one.    There  was  something  in  the 
cheer,  too,  of  a  long  drawn  "ho-old  'em," 

I  looked  out  the  porthole  and  asked  an  am- 
bulance man:  "Did  we  get  her  then?" 

"No,  but  we  almost  did,"  he  answered. 
"There  she  is,"  he  added.  "That's  the  peri- 
scope." 

Following  the  direction  of  his  finger  I  found 
a  stray  beanpole  thrust  somewhat  carelessly 
into  the  ocean.  It  came  out  of  a  wave  top  with 
a  rakish  tilt.  Probably  ours  was  the  angle, 
for  the  steamer  was  cutting  the  ocean  into  jig- 
saw sections  as  we  careened  away  for  dear  life, 
now  with  a  zig  and  then  with  a  zag,  seeking 
safety  in  drunken  flight.  When  I  reached  the 
deck,  steamer  and  passengers  seemed  to  be 
doing  as  well  as  could  be  expected,  and  even 
better. 

The  periscope  was  faUing  astern,  and  the 
three  hundred  passengers,  mostly  ambulance 
drivers  and  Red  Cross  nurses,  were  lined  along 
the  rail,  rooting.  Some  of  the  girls  stood  on 
top  of  the  rail  and  others  climbed  up  to  the 
lifeboats,  which  were  as  good  as  a  row  of 
boxes.    It  was  distinctly  a  home  team  crowd. 

2 


THE  BIG  POND 

Nobody  cheered  for  the  submarine.  The  only 
passenger  who  showed  fright  was  a  chap  who 
rushed  up  and  down  the  deck  loudly  shouting; 
"Don't  get  excited." 

"Give  'em  hell,"  said  a  home  town  fan  and 
shook  his  fist  in  the  direction  of  the  submarine. 
The  gunner  fired  his  fourth  shot  and  this  time 
he  was  far  short  in  his  calculation. 

"It's  a  question  of  whether  we  get  her  first 
or  she  gets  us,  isn't  it?"  asked  an  old  lady  in 
about  the  tone  she  would  have  used  in  ask- 
ing a  popular  lecturer  whether  or  not  he 
thought  Hamlet  was  really  mad.  Such  neu- 
trality was  beyond  me.  I  couldn't  help  ex- 
pressing a  fervent  hope  that  the  contest  would 
be  w^on  by  our  steamer.  It  was  the  bulliest  sort 
of  a  game,  and  a  pleasant  afternoon,  too,  but 
one  passenger  was  no  more  than  mildly  inter- 
ested. W.  K.  Vanderbilt  did  not  put  on  a  life 
preserver  nor  did  he  leave  his  deck  chair.  He 
sat  up  just  a  bit  and  watched  the  whole  af- 
fair tolerantly.  After  all  the  submarine  cap- 
tain was  a  stranger  to  him. 

Our  fifth  and  final  shot  w^as  the  best.  It  hit 
the  periscope  or  thereabouts.  The  shell  did  not 

3 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

rebound  and  there  was  a  patch  of  oil  on  the 
surface  of  the  water.  The  beanpole  disap- 
peared. The  captain  left  the  bridge  and  went 
to  the  smoking  room.    He  called  for  cognac. 

"II  est  mort,"  said  he,  with  a  sweep  of  his 
right  hand. 

"He  says  we  sunk  her,"  explained  the  man 
who  spoke  French. 

The  captain  said  the  submarine  had  fired 
one  torpedo  and  had  missed  the  steamer  by 
about  ninety  feet.  The  U-boat  captain  must 
have  taken  his  eye  off  the  boat,  or  sliced  or 
committed  some  technical  blunder  or  other, 
for  he  missed  an  easy  shot.  Even  German  ef- 
ficiency cannot  eradicate  the  blessed  amateur. 
May  his  thumbs  never  grow  less ! 

We  looked  at  the  chart  and  found  that  our 
ship  was  more  than  seven  hundred  miles  from 
the  nearest  land.    It  seemed  a  lonely  ocean. 

One  man  came  through  the  crisis  with  com- 
plete triumph.  As  soon  as  the  submarine  was 
sighted,  the  smoking  room  steward  locked  the 
cigar  chest  and  the  wine  closet.  Not  until 
then  did  he  go  below  for  his  lifebelt. 

Reviewing  my  own  emotions,  I  found  that  I 


THE  BIG  POND 

had  not  been  frightened  quite  as  badl}^  as  I  ex- 
pected. The  submarine  didn't  begin  to  scare 
me  as  much  as  the  first  act  of  "The  Thirteenth 
Chair,"  but  still  I  could  hardly  lay  claim  to 
calm,  for  I  had  not  spoken  one  of  the  appro- 
priate speeches  which  came  to  my  mind  after 
the  attack.  The  only  thing  to  which  I  could 
point  with  pride  was  the  fact  that  before  put- 
ting on  my  lifebelt  I  paused  to  open  a  box  of 
candy,  and  went  on  deck  to  face  destruction, 
or  what  not,  with  a  caramel  between  my  teeth. 
But  before  the  hour  was  up  I  was  sunk  in- 
deed. 

It  was  submarine  this  and  sousmarin  that 
in  the  smoking  room.  The  U-boats  lurked  in 
every  corner.  One  man  had  seen  two  and  at 
the  next  table  was  a  chap  who  had  seen  three. 
There  was  the  fellow  who  had  sighted  the  peri- 
scope first  of  all,  the  man  who  had  seen  the 
wake  of  the  torpedo,  and  the  littlest  ambulance 
driver  who  had  sighted  the  submarine  through 
the  bathroom  window  while  immersed  in  the 
tub.  He  was  the  man  who  had  started  for 
the  deck  with  nothing  more  about  him  than  a 
lifebelt  and  had  been  turned  back. 

5 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

"I  wonder,"  said  a  passenger,  "whether 
those  submarines  have  wireless?  Do  you  sup- 
pose now  that  boat  could  send  messages  on 
ahead  and  ask  other  U-boats  to  look  after  us?" 
And  just  then  the  gun  on  the  forward  deck 
went  "Bang." 

It  was  the  meanest  and  most  inappropriate 
sound  I  ever  heard.  It  was  an  anti-climax  of 
the  most  vicious  sort.  It  was  bad  form,  bad 
art,  bad  everything.  I  felt  a  little  sick,  and 
one  of  the  contributing  emotions  was  a  sort 
of  fearfully  poignant  boredom.  I  tried  to  re- 
member just  v/hat  the  law  of  averages  was  and 
to  compute  as  rapidly  as  possible  the  chances 
of  the  vessel  to  complete  two  more  days  of 
travel  if  attacked  by  a  submarine  every  hour. 

"The  ocean  is  full  of  the  damn  things,"  said 
the  man  at  the  next  table  petulantly. 

This  time  the  thing  was  a  black  object  not 
more  than  fifty  yards  away.  The  captain  sig- 
naled the  gunner  not  to  fire  again  and  he  let 
it  be  known  that  this  was  nothing  but  a  bar- 
rel. Later  it  was  rumored  that  it  was  a  mine, 
but  then  there  were  all  sorts  of  rumors  dur- 
ing those  last  two  days  when  we  ran  along 

6 


THE  BIG  POND 

with  lifeboats  swung  out.  There  was  much 
talk  of  a  convoy,  but  none  appeared. 

Many  passengers  slept  on  deck  and  some 
went  to  meals  with  their  lifebelts  on.  Every- 
body jumped  when  a  plate  was  dropped  and 
there  was  always  the  possibility  of  starting  a 
panic  by  slamming  a  door.  And  so  we  cheered 
when  the  steamer  came  to  the  mouth  of  the 
river  which  leads  to  Bordeaux.  We  cheered 
for  France  from  friendship.  We  cheered  from 
surprise  and  joy  when  the  American  flag  went 
up  to  the  top  of  a  high  mast  and  we  cheered 
a  little  from  sheer  relief  because  we  had  left 
the  sea  and  the  U-boats  behind  us. 

They  had  been  with  us  not  a  httle  from  the 
beginning.  Even  on  the  first  day  out  from 
New  York  the  ship  ran  with  all  lights  out  and 
portholes  shielded.  Later  passengers  were  for- 
bidden to  smoke  on  deck  at  night  and  once 
there  was  a  lifeboat  drill  of  a  sort,  but  the  boats 
were  not  swung  out  in  the  davits  until  after 
we  met  the  submarine. 

Early  in  the  voyage  an  old  lady  complained 
to  the  purser  because  a  young  man  in  the  music 

7 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

room  insisted  on  playing  the  Dead  March  from 
"Saul."  There  was  more  cheerful  music.  The 
ambulance  drivers  saw  to  that.  We  had  an 
Amherst  unit  and  one  from  Leland  Stanford 
and  the  boys  were  nineteen  or  thereabouts.  It 
is  well  enough  to  say  that  all  the  romance  has 
gone  out  of  modern  war,  but  you  can't  con- 
vince a  nineteen-year-older  of  that  when  he  has 
his  first  khaki  on  his  back  and  his  first  anti- 
typhoid inoculation  in  his  arm.  They  boasted 
of  these  billion  germs  and  they  swaggered  and 
played  banjos  and  sang  songs.  Mostly  they 
sang  at  night  on  the  pitch  black  upper  deck. 
The  littlest  ambulance  driver  had  a  nice  tenor 
voice  and  on  still  nights  he  did  not  care  what 
submarine  commander  knew  that  he  "learned 
about  women  from  her."  He  and  his  com- 
panions rocked  the  stars  with  "She  knifed  me 
one  night."  Daytimes  they  studied  French 
from  the  ground  up.  It  was  the  Second  day 
out  that  I  heard  a  voice  from  just  outside  my 
porthole  inquire  "E-S-T — what's  that  and  how 
do  you  say  it?"  Later  on  the  littlest  ambu- 
lance driver  had  made  marked  progress  and 

8 


THE  BIG  POND 

was  explaining  "Mon  oncle  a  une  bonne  fiUe, 
mais  mon  pere  est  riche." 

Romance  was  not  hard  to  find  on  the  vessel. 
The  slow  waiter  who  limped  had  been  wounded 
at  the  Marne,  and  the  little  fat  stewardess  had 
spent  twenty-two  days  aboard  the  German 
raider  Eitel  Friedrich.  There  were  French 
soldiers  in  the  steerage  and  one  of  them  had 
the  Croix  de  Guerre  with  four  palms.  He 
had  been  wounded  three  times. 

But  when  the  ship  came  up  the  river  the 
littlest  ambulance  driver — the  one  who  knew 
"est"  and  women — summed  things  up  and 
decided  that  he  was  glad  to  be  an  American. 
He  looked  around  the  deck  at  the  Red  Cross 
nurses  and  others  who  had  stood  along  the  rail 
and  cheered  in  the  submarine  fight,  and  he 
said: 

"I  never  would  have  thought  it  of  'em.  It's 
kinda  nice  to  know  American  women  have 
got  so  much  nerve." 

The  littlest  ambulance  driver  drew  himself 
up  to  his  full  five  feet  four  and  brushed  his 
new  uniform  once  again. 

"Yes,  sir,"  he  said,  "we  men  have  certainly 
9 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

got  to  hand  it  to  the  girls  on  this  boat."  And 
as  he  went  down  the  gangplank  he  was  hum- 
ming: "And  I  learned  about  women  from 
her." 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  A.  E.  F. 

The  dawn  was  gray  and  so  was  the  ship,  but 
the  eye  picked  her  out  of  the  mist  because  of 
two  broad  yellow  stripes  which  ran  the  whole 
length  of  the  upper  decks.  As  the  ship 
warped  into  the  pier  the  stripes  of  yellow 
became  so  many  layers  of  men  in  khaki,  each 
motionless  and  each  gazing  toward  the  land. 

"Say,"  cried  a  voice  across  the  diminishing 
strip  of  water,  "what  place  is  this  anyhow?" 
The  reply  came  back  from  newspapermen 
whose  only  companions  on  the  pier  were  two 
French  soldiers  and  a  little  group  of  Ger- 
man prisoners. 

"Well,"  said  the  voice  from  the  ship,  "this 
ought  to  be  better  than  the  Texas  border." 

The  American  regulars  had  come  to 
France. 

The  two  French  soldiers  looked  at  the  men 
11 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

on  the  transport  and  cheered,  flinging  their 
caps  in  the  air.  The  Germans  just  looked. 
They  were  engaged  in  moving  rails  and  after 
lifting  one  they  would  pause  and  gaze  into 
space  for  many  minutes  until  the  guards  told 
them  to  get  to  work  again.  But  now  the 
guards  were  so  interested  that  the  Germans 
prolonged  the  rest  interval  and  stared  at  the 
ship.  News  that  ships  were  in  was  carried 
through  the  town  and  people  came  running 
to  the  pier.  There  were  women  and  children 
and  old  men  and  a  few  soldiers. 

Nobody  had  known  the  Americans  were 
coming.  Even  the  mayor  was  surprised  and 
had  to  run  home  to  get  his  red  sash  and  his 
high  hat.  Children  on  the  way  to  school  did 
not  go  further  than  the  quay,  for  back  of  the 
ship,  creeping  into  the  slip,  were  other  ships 
with  troops  and  torpedo  boat  destroyers  and  a 
cruiser. 

Just  before  the  gangplank  was  lowered  the 
band  on  the  first  transport  played  "The  Star 
Spangled  Banner."  The  men  on  the  ship 
stood  at  attention.  The  crowds  on  shore  only 
watched.     They  did  not  know  our  national 

12 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

anthem  yet.  Next  the  band  played  "The 
Marseillaise,"  and  the  hats  of  the  crowd  came 
off.  As  the  last  note  died  away  one  of  the 
Americans  relaxed  from  attention  and  leaned 
over  the  rail  toward  a  small  group  of  news- 
papermen from  America. 

"Do  they  allow  enlisted  men  to  drink  in 
the  saloons  in  this  town?"  he  asked. 

Somebody  else  wanted  to  know,  "Is  there 
any  place  in  town  where  a  fellow  can  get  a 
piece  of  pie?"  A  sailor  was  anxious  to  rent  a 
bicycle  or  a  horse  and  "ride  somewhere." 
Later  the  universal  question  became,  "Don't 
any  of  these  people  speak  American?" 

The  men  were  hustled  off  the  ship  and 
marched  into  the  long  street  which  runs  paral- 
lel with  the  docks.  They  passed  within  a  few 
feet  of  the  Germans.  There  was  less  than 
the  length  of  a  bayonet  between  them  but  the 
doughboys  did  credit  to  their  brief  training. 
They  kept  their  eyes  straight  ahead. 

"How  do  they  look?"  one  of  the  newspaper- 
men asked  a  German  sergeant  in  the  group  of 
prisoners. 

"Oh,  they  look  all  right,"  he  said  profes- 
13 


THE  A.  E.  F, 

sionally,  "but  you  can't  tell  yet.  I'd  want  to 
see  them  in  action  first." 

"They  don't  lift  their  knees  high  enough," 
he  added  and  grinned  at  his  little  joke. 

A  French  soldier  came  up  then  and  ex- 
postulated. He  said  that  we  must  not  talk  to 
the  Germans  and  set  his  prisoners  back  to 
their  task  of  lifting  rails.  There  were  guards 
at  both  ends  of  the  street,  but  scores  of  chil- 
dren slipped  by  them  and  began  to  talk  to  the 
soldiers.  There  were  hardly  half  a  dozen 
men  in  the  first  regiment  who  understood 
French.  Veterans  of  the  Mexican  border 
tried  a  little  bad  Spanish  and  when  that  didn't 
work  they  fell  back  to  signs.  The  French 
made  an  effort  to  meet  the  visitors  half  way. 
I  saw  a  boy  extend  his  reader  to  a  soldier  and 
explain  that  a  fearfully  homely  picture  which 
looked  like  a  caterpillar  was  a  "chenille."  The 
boy  added  that  the  chenille  was  so  ugly  that 
it  was  without  doubt  German  and  no  good. 
Children  also  pointed  out  familiar  objects  in 
the  book  such  as  "Chats"  and  "Chiens,"  but 
as  one  soldier  said:  "I  don't  care  about  those 

14 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

things,  sonny :  haven't  you  got  a  roast  chicken 
or  an  apple  pie  in  that  book?" 

Some  officers  had  tried  to  teach  their  men 
a  little  French  on  the  trip  across,  but  not 
much  seemed  to  stick.  The  men  were  not  over 
curious  as  to  this  strange  language.  One  old 
sergeant  vt^ent  to  his  lieutenant  and  said: 
"You  know,  sir,  I've  served  in  China  and  the 
Philippines  and  Cuba.  I've  been  up  against 
this  foreign  language  proposition  before  and 
I  know  just  what  I  need.  If  you'll  write 
down  a  few  words  for  me  and  tell  me  how 
they're  pronounced  I  won't  have  to  bother 
you  any  more.  I  want  'Give  me  a  plate  of 
ham  and  eggs.  How  much?  What's  your 
name?'  and  'Do  you  love  me,  kid?'  " 

The  vocabulary  of  the  officers  did  not  seem 
very  much  more  extensive  than  that  of  the 
men.  While  the  troops  were  disembarking 
officers  were  striving  to  get  supplies  started 
for  the  camp  several  miles  outside  the  city. 
All  the  American  motor  trucks  had  been 
shipped  on  the  slowest  steamer  of  the  convoy 
but  the  French  came  to  our  aid.  "I  have  just 
one  order,"  said  the  French  officer,  who  met 

15 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

the  first  unit  of  the  American  Expeditionary 
Army,  "there  is  no  American  and  no  French 
now.     There  is  only  ours." 

Although  the  officer  was  kind  enough  to 
make  ownership  of  all  available  motor  trucks 
common,  he  could  not  do  as  much  for  the 
language  of  the  poilus  who  drove  them.  I 
found  the  American  motor  truck  chief  hope- 
lessly entangled. 

"Have  you  enough  gasoline  to  go  to  the 
camp  and  back?"  he  inquired  of  the  driver  of 
the  first  camion  to  be  loaded.  The  French- 
man shrugged  his  shoulders  to  indicate  that 
he  did  not  comprehend.  The  officer  smiled 
tolerantly  and  spoke  with  gentle  firmness  as 
if  to  a  wayward  child.  "Have  you  enough 
gasoline?"  he  said.  Again  the  Frenchman's 
shoulders  went  up.  "Have  you  enough  gaso- 
line?" repeated  the  officer,  only  this  time  he 
spoke  loudly  and  fiercely  as  if  talking  to  his 
wife.  Even  yet  the  Frenchman  did  not  un- 
derstand. Inspiration  came  to  the  American 
officer.  Suddenly  he  gesticulated  with  both 
hands  and  began  to  imitate  George  Beban  as 
the  French  waiter  m  one  of  the  old  Weber 

16 


THE  A,  E.  F. 

and  Fields  shows.  "  'Ave  you  enough  of  ze 
gaz-o-leene  ?"  he  piped  mincingly.  Then  an 
interpreter  came. 

After  several  companies  had  disembarked 
the  march  to  camp  began,  up  the  main  street 
and  along  the  fine  shore  road  which  skirts  the 
bay.  The  band  struck  up  "Stars  and  Stripes 
Forever"  and  away  they  went.  They  did  not 
march  well,  these  half  green  companies  who 
had  rolled  about  the  seas  so  long,  but  they 
held  the  eyes  of  all  and  the  hearts  of  some. 
They  glorified  even  cheap  tunes  such  as  "If 
You  Don't  Like  Your  Uncle  Sammy  Go 
Back  to  Your  Home  Across  the  Sea,"  and 
Sousa  seemed  a  very  master  of  fire  when  the 
men  paraded  to  his  marches.  These  Amer- 
ican units  did  not  give  the  impression  of  com- 
pactness which  one  gets  from  Frenchmen  on 
the  march.  The  longer  stride  gives  the  dough- 
boy an  uneven  gait.  He  looks  like  a  man 
walking  across  a  plowed  field  and  yet  you  can- 
not miss  a  sense  of  power.  You  feel  that  he 
will  get  there  even  if  his  goal  is  the  red  sun 
itself  at  the  back  of  the  hills. 

There  was  no  long  drawn  cheer  from  the 
17 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

people  who  lined  the  streets  to  see  the  Amer- 
icans pass.  Even  crowds  in  Paris  do  not  cheer 
like  that.  Instead  individuals  called  out 
phrases  of  greeting  and  there  was  much  hand- 
clapping.  Although  mixed  in  point  of  serv- 
ice the  men  ran  to  tj^pe  as  far  as  build  went. 
They  amazed  the  French  by  their  height,  al- 
though some  of  the  organizations  which  fol- 
lowed the  first  division  are  better  physically. 
Of  course  these  American  troops  are  actually 
taller  than  the  French  and  in  addition  they 
are  thin  enough  to  accentuate  their  height.  It 
was  easy  to  pick  out  the  youngsters,  most  of 
whom  found  their  packs  a  little  heavy.  They 
would  stand  up  straighter  though  when  an  old 
sergeant  moved  alongside  and  growled  a  word 
or  two.  It  was  easy  to  see  that  these  sergeants 
were  of  the  old  army.  They  were  all  lank 
men,  boiled  red  from  within  and  without. 
They  had  put  deserts  and  jungles  under  foot 
and  no  distance  would  seem  impossible  for 
them  along  the  good  roads  of  France. 

As  ship  after  ship  came  in  more  troops 
marched  to  camp.  The  streets  were  filled 
with  the  clatter  of  the  big  boots  of  doughboys 

18 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

throughout  the  morning  and  well  into  the 
afternoon.  There  were  American  army  mules, 
too,  and  although  the  natives  had  seen  the 
animal  before  in  French  service,  he  attracted 
no  end  of  attention.  In  his  own  particular 
army  the  mule  seems  more  picturesque.  He 
has  never  learned  French.  It  seems  to  break 
his  spirit,  but  he  pranced  and  kicked  and 
played  the  very  devil  under  the  stimulus  of 
the  loud  endearments  of  the  American  mule 
drivers. 

The  French  were  also  interested  in  a  com- 
pany of  American  negroes  specially  re- 
cruited for  stevedore  service.  The  negroes 
had  been  outfitted  with  old  cavalry  overcoats 
of  a  period  shortly  after  the  Civil  War.  They 
were  blue  coats  with  gold  buttons  and  the  lin- 
ing was  a  tasteful  but  hardly  somber  shade  of 
crimson.  Nor  were  the  negroes  without  pic- 
turesque qualities  even  when  they  had  shed 
their  coats  and  gone  to  work.  Their  work- 
ing shirts  of  white  were  inked  all  over  with 
pious  sentences  calculated  to  last  through  the 
submarine  zone,  but  piety  was  mixed.  One 
big   negro,    for   instance,    had   written   upon 

19 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

his  shirt:  "The  Lord  is  my  shepherd,"  but  un- 
derneath he  had  drawn  a  large  starfish  for 
luck.  A  few  daring  ones  had  ornamented 
themselves  with  skulls  and  crossbones.  To  the 
negroes  fell  the  bitterest  disappointment  of 
the  American  landing  in  France.  Two  Savan- 
nah stevedores  caught  sight  of  a  black  soldier 
in  the  French  uniform  and  rushed  up  to  ex- 
change greetings.  The  Senegalese  shrugged 
his  shoulders  and  turned  away  from  the  flood 
of  English. 

"That,"  said  one  of  the  American  darkies, 
"is  the  most  ignorantest  and  stuck  up  nigger 
I  ever  did  see."  They  were  not  yet  ready  to 
believe  that  the  negro  race  had  let  itself  in  for 
the  amazing  complications  of  a  foreign  lan- 
guage. 

Later  in  the  day  the  town  was  full  of  the 
eddies  which  occur  when  two  languages  meet 
head  on,  for  almost  all  the  soldiers  and  sailors 
received  leave  to  come  to  town.  They  wanted 
beer  and  champagne  and  cognac,  chocolate, 
cake,  crackers,  pears,  apples,  cherries,  picture 
postcards,  sardines,  rings,  cigarettes,  and 
books  of  French  and  English  phrases.     The 

20 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

phrase  books  were  usually  an  afterthought,  so 
commerce  was  conducted  with  difficulty.  A 
few  of  the  shopkeepers  equipped  themselves 
with  dictionaries  and  painstakingly  worked 
out  the  proper  reply  for  each  customer.  Signs 
were  much  more  effective  and  vrhen  it  came 
to  purchase,  the  sailor  or  soldier  simply  held 
out  a  handful  of  American  money  and  the 
storekeeper  took  a  little.  To  the  credit  of  the 
shopkeepers  of  the  nameless  port,  let  it  be 
said  that  they  seemed  in  every  case  to  take  no 
more  than  an  approximation  of  the  right 
amount.  Fortunately  the  late  unpleasantness 
at  Babel  was  not  absolutely  thoroughgoing 
and  there  are  words  in  French  which  offer  no 
great  difficulty  to  the  American.  The  entente 
cordiale  is  furthered  by  words  such  as  "choco- 
lat,"  "sandwich,"  "biere"  and  "bifstek."  The 
difficulties  of  "vin"  are  not  insurmountable 
either. 

"A  funny  people,"  was  the  comment  of  one 
doughboy,  "when  I  ask  for  'sardines'  I  get 
'em  all  right,  but  when  I  say  'cheese'  or 
'canned  peaches'  I  don't  get  anything." 

Another  complained,  "I  don't  understand 
21 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

these  people  at  all.  They  spell  some  of  their 
words  all  right,  but  they  haven't  got  the  sense 
to  say  'em  that  way."  He  could  see  no  rea- 
son why  "vin"  should  sound  like  "van." 

Another  objection  of  the  invading  army  was 
that  the  townsfolk  demanded  whole  sentences 
of  French.  JMixtures  seemed  incomprehen- 
sible to  them  and  the  oiBcer  who  kept  crying 
out,  "Madame,  where  are  my  oeufs?"  got  no 
satisfaction  whatever. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  phrase  books  began 
to  appear,  but  they  did  not  help  a  great  deal 
because  by  the  time  the  right  phrase  had  been 
found  some  fellow  who  used  only  sign  lan- 
guage had  slipped  in  ahead  of  the  student. 
Then,  too,  some  of  the  books  seemed  hardly 
adapted  for  present  conditions.  One  officer 
was  distinctl}^  annoyed  because  the  first  sen- 
tence he  found  in  a  chapter  headed  war  terms 
was,  "Where  is  the  grand  stand?"  But  the 
book  which  seemed  to  fall  furthest  short  of 
promise  was  a  pamphlet  entitled,  "Just  the 
French  You  Want  to  Know." 

"Look  at  this,"  said  an  indignant  owner. 
"Le  travail  assure  la  sante  et  la  bien-etre,  il 

22 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

eleve  et  fortifie  I'ame,  il  adoucit  les  souf- 
frances,  chasse  I'ennui,  et  plaisir  sans  pareil, 
il  est  encore  le  sel  des  aiitres  plaisirs.  Go  on 
with  it.  Look  at  what  all  that  means — 'Work 
assures  health  and  well  being,  it  elevates  and 
fortifies  the  soul,  drives  away  ennui,  alleviates 
suffering,  and,  a  pleasure  without  an  equal,  it 
is  still  the  salt  of  all  other  pleasures' — what 
do  you  think  of  that?  Just  the  French  you 
want  to  know!  I  don't  want  to  address  the 
graduating  class,  I  want  to  tell  a  barber  to 
leave  it  long  on  top,  but  trim  it  pretty  close 
around  the  edges." 

The  happy  purchaser  of  the  book  did  not 
throw  it  away,  however,  until  he  turned  to  the 
chapter  headed  "At  the  Tailor's"  and  found 
that  the  first  sentence  set  down  in  French 
meant,  "The  bodice  is  too  tight  in  front,  and 
it  is  uncomfortable  under  the  arms.  It  is  a 
little  too  low-necked,  and  the  sleeves  are  not 
wide  enough." 

Sundown  sent  most  of  the  soldiers  scurry- 
ing back  to  camp,  but  the  port  lacked  no  life 
that  night,  for  sailors  came  ashore  in  increas- 
ing   numbers    and    American    officers    were 

23 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

everywhere.  The  two  hotels — the  Grand  and 
the  Grand  Hotel  des  IVIessageries,  known  to 
the  army  as  the  Grand  and  Miserable  Hotel 
— were  thronged.  Generals  and  Admirals 
rushed  about  to  conferences  and  in  the  middle 
of  all  the  confusion  a  young  second  lieutenant 
sat  at  the  piano  in  the  parlor  of  the  Grand 
and  played  Schumann's  "Warum"  over  and 
over  again  as  if  his  heart  would  break  for 
homesickness.  The  sailors  and  a  few  soldiers 
who  seemed  to  have  business  in  the  town  had 
no  trouble  in  making  themselves  at  home. 

"Mademoiselle,  donnez  moi  un  baiser,  s'il 
vous  plait,"  said  one  of  the  apt  pupils  to  the 
pretty  barmaid  at  the  Cafe  du  Centre. 

But  she  said:  "Mais  non." 

Crowds  began  to  collect  just  off  the  main 
street.  I  hurried  over  to  one  group  of  sailors, 
convinced  that  something  important  was  going 
on,  since  French  soldiers  and  civilians  stood 
about  six  deep.  History  was  being  made  in- 
deed. For  the  first  time  "craps"  was  being 
played  on  French  soil. 


CHAPTER  III 

LAFAYETTE,  NOUS  VOILA 

The  navy  was  the  first  to  take  Paris.  While 
the  doughboys  were  still  at  the  port  crowding 
themselves  into  camp,  lucky  sailors  were  on 
their  way  to  let  the  French  capital  see  the 
American  uniform.  I  came  up  on  the  night 
train  with  a  crowd  of  them.  Their  pockets 
bulged  with  money,  tins  of  salmon,  ham  and 
truffled  chicken.  They  had  chocolate  in  their 
hats  and  boxes  of  fancy  crackers  under  their 
arms,  while  cigars  and  cigarettes  poked  out  of 
their  blouses.  They  would  have  nothing  to 
do  with  French  tobacco,  but  favored  a  popu- 
lar American  brand  which  sells  for  a  quarter 
in  New  York  and  twice  as  much  over  here. 
One  almost  expected  each  sailor  to  produce  a 
roast  turkey  or  a  pheasant  from  up  his  sleeve 
at  meal  time,  but  it  was  pretty  much  all  meal 
time  for  these  men  who  were  making  their 

25 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

shore  leave  an  intensive  affair.  One  was  a 
very  new  sailor  and  he  was  rejoicing  to  find 
land  under  his  feet  again. 

"Oh,  hoy!"  he  said,  when  I  asked  him  about 
his  ship,  "that  old  tub  had  two  more  move- 
ments than  a  hula  dancer." 

The  little  group  in  my  compartment  was 
sampling  some  champagne  which  hospitable 
folk  at  the  port  had  given  them.  It  was  not 
real  champagne,  to  be  sure,  but  a  cheaper 
white  wine  with  twice  as  many  bubbles  and  at 
least  as  much  noise.  It  sufficed  very  well, 
since  it  was  ostentation  rather  than  thirst 
which  spurred  the  sailors  on  and  they  spread 
their  hospitality  throughout  the  train.  A  few 
French  soldiers  headed  back  for  the  trenches 
were  the  traveling  companions  of  the  Amer- 
icans. The  poilus  were  decidedly  friendly  but 
somewhat  amazed  at  the  big  men  who  made 
so  much  noise  with  their  jokes  and  their  songs. 
Of  course  the  French  were  called  upon  to 
sample  the  various  tinned  and  bottled  goods 
which  the  sailors  were  carrying.  It  was  "have 
a  swig  of  this,  Froggy"  or  "get  yourself 
around  that,  Frenchy."    The  Americans  were 

26 


LAFAYETTE,  NOUS  VOILA 

still  just  a  bit  condescending  to  their  brothers 
in  arms.  They  had  not  yet  seen  them  in  action. 
Of  course  there  was  much  comparison  of  equip- 
ment and  the  sailors  all  tried  on  the  trench 
helmets  of  the  French  and  found  them  too 
small.  The  entente  grew  and  presently  there 
was  an  allied  concert.  The  sailors  sang, 
"What  a  Wonderful  Mother  You'd  Make," 
and  the  French  replied  with  the  Verdun  song, 
"lis  Ne  Passeront  Pas,"  and  later  with 
"Madelon." 

I  heard  that  song  many  times  afterwards 
and  it  always  brings  to  mind  a  picture  of 
dusty  French  soldiers  marching  with  their 
short,  quick,  eager  stride.  They  are  always 
dusty.  All  summer  long  they  wear  big  over- 
coats which  come  below  the  knee.  Dust  set- 
tles and  multiplies  and  if  you  see  a  French 
regiment  marching  in  the  spring  rainy  season, 
it  will  still  be  dusty.  Perhaps  their  souls  are 
a  little  dusty  now,  but  it  is  French  dust.  And 
as  they  march  they  sing  as  the  men  sang  to  the 
newly  arrived  Americans  in  the  train  that 
night : 

27 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

For  all  the  soldiers,  on  their  holidays, 

There  is   a  place,  just  tucked  in  by   the  woods, 

A  house  with  ivy  growing  on  the  walls — 

A  cabaret — "Aux  Toulourous" — the  goods  ! 

The  girl  who  serves   is   young   and   sweet  as   love, 

She's  light  as  any  butterfly  in  Spring, 

Her  eyes  have  got  a  sparkle  like  her  wine. 

We  call  her  Madelon — it's  got  a  swing! 

The  soldiers'  girl!     She  leads  us  all  a  dance! 

She's  only  Madelon,  but  she's  Romance! 

When  Madelon  comes  out  to  serve  us  drinks, 
We  always  know  she's  coming  by  her  song! 
And  every  man,  he  tells  his  little  tale. 
And   Madelon,   she   listens    all  day  long. 
Our  Madelon  is  never  too  severe — 
A  kiss  or  two  is  nothing  much  to  her — 
She  laughs  us  up  to  love  and  life  and  God — 
Madelon !     Madelon !     Madelon ! 

We  all  have  girls   for  keeps  that  wait  at  home 

Who'll  marry  us  when  fighting  time  is  done; 

But  they  are  far  away — too  far  to  tell 

What  happens  in  these  days  of  cut-and-run. 

We  sigh  away  such  days  as  best  we  can. 

And  pray  for  time  to  bring  us  nearer  home, 

But  tales   like   ours   won't  wait   till  then   to   tell — 

We  have  to  run  and  boast  to  Madelon. 

We  steal  a  kiss — she  takes  it  all  in  play; 

We  dream  she  is  that  other — far  away. 

28 


LAFAYETTE,  NOUS  VOILA 

A  c5orp'ral  with  a  feather  in  his  cap 

Went   courting  Madelon  one   summer's  day, 

And,  mad  with  love,  he  swore  she  was  superb, 

And  he  would  wed  her  any  day  she'd  say. 

But  Madelon  was  not  for  any  such — 

She  danced  away  and  laughed:     "My  stars  above! 

Why,  how  could  I  consent  to  marry  you, 

When  I  have  my  whole  regiment  to  love? 

I  could  not  choose  just  one  and  leave  the  rest. 

I  am  the  soldiers'  girl — I  like  that  best!" 

When  Madelon  comes  out  to  serve  us  drinks, 
We  always  know  she's  coming  by  her  song! 
And  every  man,  he  tells  his  little  tale. 
And  Madelon,  she  listens  all  day  long. 
Our  Madelon  is  never  too   severe — 
A  kiss  or  two  is  nothing  much  to  her — 
She  laughs  us  up  to  love  and  life  and  God — 
Madelon !     Madelon  !     Madelon ! 

When  the  train  came  into  Paris  early  the 
next  morning  the  sailors  were  singing  the 
chorus  with  the  poilus.  They  parted  company 
at  the  quai  d'Orsay.  The  soldiers  went  to  the 
front;  the  sailors  turned  to  Paris.  It  was  a 
Paris  such  as  no  one  had  ever  seen  before. 
The  "banniere  etoilee"  was  everywhere.  We 
call  it  the  Stars  and  Stripes.  Little  flags  were 
stuck  rakishly  behind  the  ears  of  disreputable 

29 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

Parisian  cab  horses;  bigger  flags  were  in  the 
windows  of  the  shops  and  on  top  of  buildings, 
but  the  biggest  American  flag  of  all  hung  on 
the  Strassburg  monument  which  shed  its 
mourning  when  the  war  began. 

Two  days  later  all  the  flags  were  flutter- 
ing, for  on  the  morning  of  the  third  of  July 
the  doughboys  came  to  Paris.  It  made  no 
difference  that  they  were  only  a  battalion. 
When  the  French  saw  them  they  thought  of 
armies  and  of  new  armies,  for  these  were  the 
first  soldiers  in  many  months  who  smiled  as 
they  marched.  The  train  was  late,  but  the 
crowd  waited  outside  the  Gare  d'Austerlitz 
for  more  than  two  hours.  French  Red  Cross 
nurses  were  waiting  at  the  station,  and  the 
doughboys  had  their  first  experience  with 
French  rations,  for  they  began  the  long  day 
with  "petit  dejeuner."  Men  brought  up  on 
ham  and  eggs  and  flapjacks  and  oatmeal  and 
even  breakfast  pie,  found  war  bread  and  cof- 
fee a  scant  repast,  but  the  ration  proved  more 
popular  than  was  expected  when  it  was  found 
that  the  cofl*ee  was  charged  with  cognac. 
It  was  a  stronger  stimulant,  though,  which 

30 


sent  the  men  up  on  the  tips  of  their  toes 
as  they  swung  down  the  street  covering  thirty- 
two  inches  with  each  stride.  For  the  first  time 
they  heard  the  roar  of  a  crowed.  It  was  not 
the  steady  roar  such  as  comes  from  American 
throats.  It  was  spht  up  into  "Vive  les  Etats 
Unis!"  and  "Vive  I'Amerique!"  wdth  an  occa- 
sional "Vive  le  President  Wilson!"  This  ap- 
pearance was  only  a  di-ess  rehearsal  and  the 
troops  were  hurried  through  little  frequented 
streets  to  a  barracks  to  await  the  morning  of 
the  Fourth. 

Paris  began  the  gi-eat  day  by  waking  Persh- 
ing with  music.  The  band  of  the  republican 
guard  was  at  the  gate  of  his  house  a  little 
after  eight  o'clock.  The  rest  of  Paris  seemed 
to  have  had  no  trouble  in  arousing  itself  with- 
out music,  for  already  several  hundred  thou- 
sand persons  were  crowded  about  the  Gen- 
eral's hotel.  First  there  were  trumpets;  then 
brasses  blared  and  drums  rumbled.  The  Gen- 
eral proved  himself  a  light  sleeper  and  a  quick 
dresser.  Before  the  last  note  of  the  fanfare 
died  away  he  was  at  the  window  and  bowing 
to  the  crowd.     This  time  there  was  a  solid 

31 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

roar,  for  everybody  shouted  "Vive  Pershing.'* 
The  band  cut  through  the  din.  There  were  a 
few  strange  variations  and  uncertainties  in 
the  tune,  but  it  was  unmistakably  "The  Star 
Spangled  Banner."  Only  a  handful  in  the 
crowd  knew  the  American  National  anthem, 
but  they  shouted  "Chapeau,  chapeau"  so  hard 
that  everybody  took  up  the  cry  and  took  off 
his  hat.  There  was  a  fine  indefinite  noisy 
roar  which  would  have  done  credit  to  a  dou- 
ble header  crowd  at  the  Polo,  Grounds  when 
Pershing  left  his  hotel  for  the  "Invalides," 
where  the  march  of  the  Americans  was  to  be- 
gin. It  was  pleasant  to  observe  at  that  mo- 
ment that  our  commander  has  as  straight  a 
back  as  any  man  in  the  allied  armies  can 
boast. 

At  least  four  hundred  thousand  people  were 
crowded  around  the  "Invalides."  They  had 
plenty  of  chance  to  shout.  They  were  able  to 
keep  their  enthusiasm  within  bounds  when 
first  Poincare  appeared  and  then  Painleve. 
The  next  celebrity  was  Papa  JofFre  and  hats 
went  into  the  air.  There  was  an  interval  of 
waiting  then  and  a  bit  of  a  riot.    An  old  man 

32 


LAFAYETTE,  NOUS  VOILA 

who  found  the  elbows  of  his  neighbors  dis- 
agreeable, exclaimed:  "Oh,  let  me  have  peace!" 
Somebody  who  heard  the  word  "peace" 
shouted:  "He's  a  pacifist,"  and  people  near 
at  hand  began  to  hit  at  him.  He  was  saved 
by  the  coming  of  the  American  soldiers. 
"Vive  les  Teddies,"  shouted  the  crowd  and 
forgot  the  old  man. 

The  crowd  made  way  for  the  Americans  as 
they  marched  toward  the  "Invalides"  and  into 
the  court  yard  where  the  trophies  won  from 
the  Germans  are  displayed.  "You  will  bring 
more  from  the  Boche,"  shouted  a  Frenchman. 
French  and  American  flags  floated  above  the 
guns  and  aeroplanes  and  minenwerfers.  Dur- 
ing the  short  ceremony  the  American  soldiers 
looked  about  curiously  at  the  trophies  and  up 
at  the  dome  above  the  tomb  of  Napoleon. 
Many  knew  him  by  reputation  and  some  had 
heard  that  he  was  buried  there. 

After  a  short  ceremony  the  Americans 
marched  out  of  the  "Invalides"  and  toward 
the  Picpus  cemetery.  The  crowds  had  in- 
creased. It  was  hard  marching  now.  French 
children  ran  in  between  the  legs  of  the  sol- 

33 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

diers.  French  soldiers  and  civilians  crowded 
in  upon  them.  It  was  impossible  to  keep 
ranks.  Now  the  men  in  khaki  were  just  a  lit- 
tle brown  stream  twisting  and  turning  in  an 
effort  to  get  onward.  People  threw  roses  at 
the  soldiers  and  they  stuffed  them  into  their 
hats  and  in  the  gun  barrels.  It  was  reported 
from  several  sources  that  one  or  two  soldiers 
who  were  forced  out  of  ranks  were  kissed,  but 
no  one  would  admit  it  afterwards.  The 
youngsters  in  the  ranks  tried  their  best  to  keep 
a  military  countenance.  They  endeavored  to 
achieve  an  expression  which  should  be  polite 
but  firm,  an  air  of  having  been  through  the 
same  experience  many  times  before.  Only 
one  or  two  old  sergeants  succeeded.  The  rest 
blushed  under  the  cheers  and  entangling  inter- 
est of  the  crowd  and  they  could  not  keep  the 
grins  away  when  people  shouted  "Vive  les 
Teddies"  or  threw  roses  at  them.  On  that 
morning  it  was  great  to  be  young  and  a 
doughboy. 

On  and  on  they  w^ent  past  high  walls  and 
gardens  to  the  edge  of  the  city  to  a  cemetery. 
There    were    speeches    here    and    they    were 

34 


LAFAYETTE,  NOUS  VOILA 

mostly  French.  Ribot  spoke  and  Painleve 
and  Pershing.  His  was  Enghsh  and  he  said: 
"I  hope,  and  I  would  like  to  say  it  that  here 
on  the  soil  of  France  and  in  the  school  of  the 
French  heroes,  our  American  soldiers  may 
learn  to  battle  and  to  vanquish  for  the  hberty 
of  the  world." 

But  the  speech  which  left  the  deepest  im- 
pression was  the  shortest  of  all.  Colonel 
Stanton  stood  before  the  tomb  of  Lafayette 
and  made  a  quick,  sharp  gesture  which  was 
broad  enough  to  include  the  youngsters  from 
Alabama  and  Texas  and  JNIassachusetts  and 
Ohio  and  the  rest.  "Lafayette,  we're  here!" 
he  said. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  FRANCO-AMERICAN  HONEYMOON 

The  day  after  the  Americans  marched  in 
Paris  one  of  the  French  newspapers  referred 
to  the  doughboys  as  "Roman  Caesars  clad  in 
khaki."  The  city  set  itself  to  liking  the  sol- 
diers and  everything  American  and  succeeded 
admirably.  Even  the  taxicab  drivers  refrained 
from  overcharging  Americans  very  much. 
School  children  studied  the  history  of  America 
and  "The  Star  Spangled  Banner."  There 
were  pictures  of  President  Wilson  and  Gen- 
eral Pershing  in  many  shops  and  some  had 
framed  translations  of  the  President's  mes- 
sage to  Congress.  In  fact,  so  eager  were  the 
French  to  take  America  to  their  hearts  that 
they  even  made  desperate  efforts  to  acquire  a 
working  knowledge  of  baseball.  Eoccelsiory 
an  illustrated  French  daily,  carried  an  action 
picture  taken  during  a  game  played  between 

36 


FRANCO-AMERICAN  HONEYMOON 

American  ambulance  drivers  just  outside  of 
Paris.  The  picture  was  entitled:  "A  player 
goes  to  catch  the  ball,  which  has  been  missed 
by  the  catcher,"  and  underneath  ran  the  fol- 
lowing explanation:  "We  have  given  in  our 
number  of  yesterday  the  rules  of  baseball,  the 
American  national  game,  of  which  a  game, 
which  is  perhaps  the  first  ever  played  in 
France,  took  place  5"esterday  at  Colombes  be- 
tween the  soldiers  of  the  American  ambu- 
lances. Here  is  an  aspect  of  the  game.  The 
pitcher,  or  thrower  of  balls,  whom  one  sees  in 
the  distance,  has  sent  the  ball.  The  catcher, 
or  'attrapeur,'  who  should  restrike  the  ball 
with  his  wooden  club,  has  missed  it,  and  a 
player  placed  behind  him  has  seized  it  in  its 
flight." 

The  next  day  L'lntransigeant  undertook 
the  even  more  hazardous  task  of  explaining 
American  baseball  slang.  During  the  parade 
on  the  Fourth  of  July  some  Americans  had 
greeted  the  doughboys  with  shouts  of 
"ataboy."  A  French  journalist  heard  and 
was  puzzled.  He  returned  to  his  office  and 
looked   in   English    dictionaries    and   various 

37 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

works  of  reference  without  enlightenment. 
Several  English  friends  were  unable  to  help 
him  and  an  American  who  had  lived  in  Paris 
for  thirty  years  was  equally  at  sea.  But  the 
reporter  worked  it  out  all  by  himself  and  the 
next  day  he  wrote :  "Parisians  have  been  puz- 
zled by  the  phrase  'ataboy'  which  Americans 
are  prone  to  employ  in  moments  of  stress  or 
emotion.  The  phrase  is  undoubtedly  a  con- 
traction of  'at  her  boy'  and  may  be  closely 
approximated  by  'au  travail,  gar^on.'  "  The 
writer  followed  with  a  brief  history  of  the 
friendly  relations  of  France  and  America  and 
paid  a  glowing  tribute  to  the  memory  of 
Lafayette. 

The  name  for  the  American  soldiers  gave 
the  French  press  and  public  no  end  of  trouble. 
They  began  enthusiastically  enough  by  calling 
them  the  "Teddies,"  but  General  Pershing, 
when  interviewed  one  day,  said  that  he  did  not 
think  this  name  quite  fitting  as  it  had  "no 
national  significance."  The  French  then  fol- 
lowed the  suggestion  of  one  of  the  American 
correspondents  and  began  to  call  the  soldiers 
"Sammies,"  or  as  the  French  pronounce  it, 

38 


FRANCO-AMERICAN  HONEYMOON 

"Sammees."  Although  this  name  received 
much  attention  in  French  and  American  news- 
papers it  has  never  caught  the  fancy  of  the  sol- 
diers in  the  American  Expeditionary  Army. 
Officers  and  men  cordially  despise  it  and  no 
soldier  ever  refers  to  himself  or  a  comrade  as 
a  "Sammy."  American  officers  have  not  been 
unmindful  of  the  usefulness  of  a  name  for  our 
soldiers.  Major  General  Sibert,  who  com- 
manded the  first  division  when  it  arrived  in 
France,  posted  a  notice  at  headquarters  which 
read:  "The  English  soldier  is  called  Tommy. 
The  French  soldier  is  called  poilu.  The  Com- 
manding General  would  like  suggestions  for  a 
name  for  the  American  soldier."  At  the  end 
of  the  week  the  following  names  had  been  writ- 
ten in  answer  to  the  General's  request: 
"Yank,  Yankee,  Johnnie,  Johnny  Yank, 
Broncho,  Nephew,  Gringo,  Liberty  Boy, 
Doughboy." 

Now  Doughboy  is  a  name  which  the  soldiers 
use,  but  strictly  speaking,  it  refers  only  to  an 
infantryman.  The  origin  of  the  name  is 
shrouded  in  mystery.  One  officer,  probably  an 
infantrjTnan,  has  written,  that  the  infantrymen 

39 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

are  called  doughboys  because  they  are  the 
flower  of  the  army.  Another  story  has  it  that 
during  some  maneuvers  in  Texas  an  artillery- 
man, comfortably  perched  on  a  gun,  saw  a 
soldier  hiking  by  in  the  thick  sticky  Texas 
mud.  The  mud  was  up  to  the  shoetops  of  the 
infantrj^man  and  the  upper  part  which  had 
dried  looked  almost  white.  "Say,"  shouted  the 
artilleryman,  "whatVe  you  been  doing? 
Walking  in  dough?"  And  so  the  men  who 
march  have  been  doughboys  ever  since. 

Paris  did  not  let  the  lack  of  a  name  come 
between  her  and  the  soldiers.  The  theaters 
gave  the  Americans  almost  as  much  recog- 
nition as  the  press.  No  musical  show  was  com- 
plete without  an  American  finale  and  each 
soubrette  learned  a  little  English,  "I  give 
you  kees,"  or  something  like  that,  to  please  the 
doughboys.  The  vaudeville  shows,  such  as 
those  provided  at  the  Olympia  or  the  Alham- 
bra,  gave  an  even  greater  proportion  of  Eng- 
lish speech.  The  Alhambra  was  filled  with 
Tommies  and  doughboys  on  the  night  I  went. 
Now  and  again  the  comedians  had  lapses  of 
language  and  the  Americans  were  forced  to 

40 


FRANCO-AMERICAN  HPNEYMOON 

let  jokes  go  zipping  by  without  response.  It 
was  a  pity,  too,  for  they  were  good  jokes  even 
if  French.  Presently,  however,  a  fat  comedian 
fell  off  a  ladder  and  laughter  became  general 
and  international.  The  show  was  more  richly 
endowed  with  actresses  than  actors.  The  man- 
agement was  careful  to  state  that  all  the  male 
performers  had  fulfilled  their  military  obliga- 
tions. Thus,  under  the  picture  of  JNIaurice 
Chevalier,  a  clever  comedian  and  dancer,  one 
read  that  Mons.  Chevalier  was  wounded  at  the 
battle  of  Cutry,  when  a  bullet  passed  between 
his  lungs.  The  story  added  that  he  was  cap- 
tured by  the  Germans  and  held  prisoner  for 
twenty-six  months  before  he  escaped.  It  did 
not  seem  surprising  therefore  that  Chevalier 
should  be  the  gayest  of  funny  men.  Twenty- 
six  months  of  imprisonment  would  work  won- 
ders with  ever  so  many  comedians  back  home. 

And  yet  we  Americans  missed  the  old  patter 
until  there  came  a  breath  from  across  the  sea. 
A  low  comedian  came  out  and  said  to  his  part- 
ner in  perfectly  good  English:  "Well,  didja 
like  the  show?"  His  partner  said  he  didn't 
like  the  show.    "Well,  didja  notice  the  trained 

41 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

seals?"  persisted  the  low  comedian  and  the 
lower  comedian  answered:  "No,  the  wind  was 
against  'em."  Laughter  long  delayed  over- 
came us  then,  but  it  was  mingled  with  tears. 
We  felt  that  we  were  home  again.  The  French 
are  a  wonderful  people  and  all  that,  of  course, 
but  they're  so  darn  far  away. 

Later  there  was  a  man  who  imitated  Eddie 
Foy  imperfectly  and  a  bad  bicycle  act  in  which 
the  performers  called  the  orchestra  leader 
"Professor"  and  shouted  "Ready"  to  each 
other  just  before  missing  each  trick.  This 
bucked  the  Americans  up  so  much  that  a  lapse 
into  French  with  Suzanne  Valroger  "dans  son 
repertoire"  failed  to  annoy  anybody  very  much. 
The  doughboys  didn't  care  whether  she  came 
back  with  her  repertoire  or  on  it.  Some  Japa- 
nese acrobats  and  a  Swedish  contortionist  com- 
pleted the  performance.  There  are  two  such 
international  music  halls  in  Paris  as  well  as  a 
musical  comedy  of  a  sort  called  "The  Good 
Luck  Girl."  The  feature  of  this  performance 
is  an  act  in  which  a  young  lady  swings  over 
the  audience  and  invites  the  soldiers  to  capture 
the  shoe  dangling  from  her  right  foot.     The 

42 


FRANCO-AMERICAN  HONEYIVIOON 

shoe  is  supposed  to  be  very  lucky  and  soldiers 
try  hard  to  get  it,  standing  up  in  their  seats 
and  snatching  as  the  girl  swings  by.  An 
American  sergeant  was  the  winner  the  night  I 
went  to  the  show,  for  he  climbed  upon  a  com- 
rade's shoulder  and  had  the  slipper  off  before 
the  girl  had  time  to  swing  out  very  far.  Later, 
when  he  went  to  the  trenches,  the  sergeant  took 
the  shoe  with  him  and  he  says  that  up  to  date  he 
has  no  reason  to  doubt  the  value  of  the  charm. 

The  most  elaborate  spectacle  inspired  by  the 
coming  of  the  Americans  was  at  the  Folies 
Bergeres  which  sent  its  chorus  out  for  the  final 
number  all  spangled  with  stars.  The  leader  of 
the  chorus  was  an  enormous  woman,  at  least 
six  feet  tall,  who  carried  an  immense  Amer- 
ican flag.  She  almost  took  the  head  off  a 
Canadian  one  night  as  he  dozed  in  a  stage  box 
and  failed  to  notice  the  violent  manner  in  which 
the  big  flag  was  being  swung.  He  awoke  just 
in  time  to  dodge  and  then  he  shook  an  accusing 
finger  at  the  Amazon.  "Why  aren't  you  in 
khaki?"  he  said. 

Restaurants  as  well  as  theaters  were  liberally 
sprinkled  with  men  in  the  American  uniform. 

43 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

The  enlisted  men  ate  for  the  most  part  in 
French  barracks  and  seemed  to  fare  well 
enough,  although  one  doughboy,  after  being 
served  with  spinach  as  a  separate  course,  com- 
plained: "I  do  wish  they'd  get  all  the  stuff  on 
the  table  at  once  like  we  do  in  the  army.  I 
don't  want  to  be  surprised,  I  want  to  be  fed." 
A  young  first  lieutenant  was  scornful  of 
French  claims  to  master  cookery.  "Why,  they 
don't  know  how  to  fry  eggs,"  he  said.  "I've 
asked  for  fried  eggs  again  and  again  and  do 
you  know  what  they  do?  They  put  'em  in  a 
little  dish  and  bake  'em." 

Yet,  barring  this  curious  and  barbarous  cus- 
tom in  the  cooking  of  eggs,  the  French  chefs 
were  able  to  charm  the  palates  of  Americans 
even  in  a  year  which  bristled  with  food  restric- 
tions. There  were  two  meatless  days  a  week, 
sugar  was  issued  in  rations  of  a  pound  a  month 
per  person  and  bread  was  gray  and  gritty. 
The  French  were  always  able  to  get  around 
these  handicaps.  The  food  director,  for  in- 
stance, called  the  ice  cream  makers  together 
and  ordered  them  to  cease  making  their  prod- 
uct in  order  to  save  sugar. 


FRANCO-AMERICAN  HONEYMOON 

"We  have  been  using  a  substitute  for  sugar 
for  seven  months,"  repHed  the  merchants. 

"Well,  then,"  said  the  food  director,  "it  will 
save  eggs." 

"We  have  hit  upon  a  method  which  makes 
eggs  unnecessary,"  replied  the  ice  cream 
makers. 

"At  any  rate,"  persisted  the  food  director, 
"my  order  will  save  unnecessary  consumption 
of  milk." 

"We  use  a  substitute  for  that,  too,"  the  con- 
fectioners answered,  and  they  were  allowed  to 
go  on  with  their  trade. 

The  cooks  are  even  more  ingenious  than  the 
confectioners.  As  long  as  they  have  the  ma- 
terials with  which  to  compound  sauces,  meat 
makes  little  difference.  War  bread  might  be 
terrapin  itself  after  a  French  chef  has  softened 
and  sabled  it  with  thick  black  dressing.  Amer- 
icans found  that  the  French  took  food  much 
more  seriously  than  we  do  in  America.  Pa- 
trons always  reviewed  the  carte  du  jour  care- 
fully before  making  a  selection.  It  was  not 
enough  to  get  something  which  would  do.  The 
meal  would  fall  something  short  of  success  if 

45 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

the  diner  did  not  succeed  in  getting  what  he 
wanted  most.  No  waiter  ever  hurried  a  sol- 
dier who  was  engaged  in  the  task  of  compos- 
ing a  dinner.  He  might  be  a  man  who  was 
going  back  to  the  trenches  the  next  day  and 
in  such  a  case  this  last  good  meal  would  not  be 
a  matter  to  be  entered  upon  lightly.  After  all, 
if  it  is  a  last  dinner  a  man  wants  to  consider 
carefully,  whether  he  shall  order  contrefilet  a 
la  Bourguignon  or  poulet  roti  a  VEspagnol. 

Whatever  may  be  his  demeanor  while  en- 
gaged in  the  business  of  making  war  or  order- 
ing a  meal,  the  Frenchman  makes  his  permis- 
sion a  real  vacation.  He  talks  a  good  deal  of 
shop.  The  man  at  the  next  table  is  telling  of  a 
German  air  raid,  only,  naturally,  he  calls  them 
Boches.  A  prison  camp,  he  explains,  was  bril- 
liantly illuminated  so  that  the  Boche  prisoners 
might  not  escape  under  the  cover  of  darkness. 
One  night  the  enemy  aviators  came  over  that 
way  and  mistook  the  prison  camp  for  a  rail- 
road station.  They  dropped  a  number  of 
bombs  and  killed  ten  of  their  comrades. 
Everybody  at  the  soldier's  table  regarded  this 
as  a  good  joke,  more  particularly  as  the  nar- 

46 


FRANCO-AMERICAN  HONEYMOON 

rator  vivified  the  incident  by  rolling  his  war 
bread  into  pellets  and  bombarding  the  table 
by  way  of  illustration,  accompanied  by  loud 
cries  of  "Plop!  Plop!" 

Practically  every  man  on  permission  in  Paris 
is  making  love  to  someone  and  usually  in  an 
open  carriage  or  at  the  center  table  of  a  large 
restaurant.  Nobody  even  turns  around  to  look 
if  a  soldier  walks  along  a  street  with  his  arm 
about  a  girl's  waist.  American  officers,  how- 
ever, frowned  on  such  exhibitions  of  demon- 
strativeness  by  doughboys  and  in  one  provin- 
cial town  a  colonel  issued  an  order:  "Amer- 
ican soldiers  will  not  place  their  arms  around 
the  waists  of  young  ladies  while  walking  in 
any  of  the  principal  thoroughfares  of  this 
town." 

Still  it  was  not  possible  to  regulate  romance 
entirely  out  of  existence.  "There  was  a  girl 
used  to  pass  my  car  every  morning,"  said  a 
sergeant  chauffeur,  "and  she  was  so  good  look- 
ing that  I  got  a  man  to  teach  me  'bon  jour/ 
and  I  used  to  smile  at  her  and  say  that  when 
she  went  by  and  she'd  say  'bon  jour'  and  smile 
back.     One  morning  I  got  an  apple  and  I 

47 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

handed  it  to  her  and  said  'pour  vous'  Hke  I'd 
been  taught.  She  took  it  and  came  right  back 
with,  'Oh,  I'm  ever  so  much  obhged,'  and  there 
hke  a  chump  I'd  been  holding  myself  down  to 
'hon  jour  for  two  weeks." 

There  could  be  no  question  of  the  devotion 
of  Paris  to  the  American  army.  Indeed,  so 
rampant  was  affection  that  it  was  occasionally 
embarrassing.  One  officer  slipped  in  alighting 
from  the  elevator  of  his  'hotel  and  sprained  his 
ankle  rather  badly.  He  was  hobbling  down 
one  of  the  boulevards  that  afternoon  with  the 
aid  of  a  cane  when  a  large  automobile  dashed 
up  to  the  curb  and  an  elderly  French  lady  who 
was  the  sole  occupant  beckoned  to  him  and 
cried:  "Premier  blesse/'  The  officer  hesitated 
and  a  man  who  was  passing  stepped  up  and 
said:  "May  I  interpret  for  you?"  The  officer 
said  he  would  be  much  obliged.  The  volunteer 
interpreter  talked  to  the  old  lady  for  a  moment 
and  then  he  turned  and  explained :  "Madame 
is  desirous  of  taking  you  in  her  car  wherever 
you  want  to  go,  because  she  says  she  is  anxious 
to  do  something  for  the  first  American  soldier 
wounded  on  the  soil  of  France." 

48 


FRANCO-AMERICAN  HONEYMOON 

The  devotion  of  Paris  was  so  obvious  that  it 
palled  on  one  or  two  who  grew  fickle.  I  saw 
a  doughboy  sitting  in  front  of  the  Cafe  de  la 
Paix  one  bright  afternoon.  He  was  drinking 
champagne  of  a  sort  and  smoking  a  large  cigar. 
The  sun  shone  on  one  of  the  liveliest  streets  of 
a  still  gay  Paris.  It  was  a  street  made  brave 
with  bright  uniforms.  Brighter  eyes  of 
obvious  non-combatants  gazed  at  him  with  ad- 
miration. I  was  sitting  at  the  next  table  and 
I  leaned  over  and  asked;  "How  do  you  like 
Paris?" 

He  let  the  smoke  roll  lazily  out  of  his  mouth 
and  shook  his  head.  "I  wish  I  was  back  in 
El  Paso,"  he  said. 

I  found  another  soldier  who  was  longing  for 
Terre  Haute.  Him  I  came  upon  in  the 
lounging  room  of  a  music  hall  called  the  Olym- 
pia.  Two  palpably  pink  ladies  sat  at  the  bar 
drinking  cognac.  From  his  table  a  few  feet 
away  the  American  soldier  looked  at  them  with 
high  disfavor.  Surprise,  horror  and  indigna- 
tion swept  across  his  face  in  three  waves  as  the 
one  called  Julie  began  to  puff  a  cigarette  after 
giving  a  light  to  Margot.    He  looked  away  at 

49 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

last  when  he  could  stand  no  more,  and  recog- 
nizing me  as  a  fellow  countryman,  he  began 
his  protest. 

"I  don't  like  this  Paris,"  he  said.  "I'm  in 
the  medical  corps,"  he  continued.  "My  home's 
in  Terre  Haute.  In  Indiana,  you  know.  I 
worked  in  a  drug  store  there  before  I  joined 
the  army.  I  had  charge  of  the  biggest  soda 
fountain  in  town.  We  used  to  have  as  many 
as  three  men  working  there  in  summer  some- 
times. Right  at  a  good  business  corner,  you 
know.  I  suppose  we  had  almost  as  many  men 
customers  as  ladies." 

"Why  don't  you  like  Paris?"  I  interrupted. 

"Well,  it's  like  this,"  he  answered.  "No- 
body can  say  I'm  narrow.    I  believe  in  people 

having  a  good  time,  but "  and  he  leaned 

nearer  confidentially,  "I  don't  like  this  Bo- 
hemia. I'd  heard  about  it,  of  course,  but  I 
didn't  know  it  was  so  bad.  You  see  that  girl 
there,  the  one  in  the  blue  dress  smoking  a  cigar- 
ette, sitting  right  up  to  the  bar.  Well,  you 
may  believe  it  or  not,  but  when  I  first  sat  down 
she  came  right  over  here  and  said,  'Hello, 
American.    You  nice  boy.    I  nice  girl.    You 

50 


FRANCO-AMERICAN  HONEY^IOON 

buy  me  a  drink.'  I  never  saw  her  before  in  my 
life,  you  understand,  and  I  didn't  even  look  at 
her  till  she  spoke  to  me.  I  told  her  to  go  away 
or  I'd  call  a  policeman  and  have  her  arrested. 
I've  been  in  Paris  a  week  now,  but  I  don't 
think  I'll  ever  get  used  to  this  Bohemia  busi- 
ness. It's  too  effusive,  that's  what  I  call  it. 
I'd  just  like  to  see  them  try  to  get  away  with 
some  of  that  business  in  Terre  Haute." 

Some  of  the  visiting  soldiers  took  more 
kindly  to  Paris  as  witness  the  plaint  of  a  mid- 
dle-aged Franco-American  in  the  employ  of 
the  Y.M.  C.  A.: 

"I'm  a  guide  for  the  Young  Men's  Christian 
Association  here  in  Paris,"  he  said,  "but  I'm 
a  little  bit  afraid  I'm  going  to  lose  my  job. 
They  make  up  parties  of  soldiers  at  the  Y.  M. 
C.  A.  headquarters  every  day  and  turn  them 
over  to  me  to  show  around  the  city.  Well, 
Monday  I  started  out  with  twelve  and  came 
back  with  five  and  today  I  finished  up  with 
three  out  of  eight.  I  can't  help  it.  I've  got 
no  authority  over  them,  and  if  they  want  to 
leave  the  party,  what  can  I  do  ?  But  it  makes 
trouble  for  me  at  headquarters.    Now,  today, 

51 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

for  instance,  I  took  them  first  of  all  to  the 
Place  Vendome.  There  were  seven  infantry- 
men and  an  artilleryman.  They  seemed  to  be 
interested  in  the  column  when  I  told  them  that 
it  was  made  out  of  cannon  captured  by  Na- 
poleon. They  wanted  to  know  how  many  can- 
non it  took  and  what  caliber  they  were  and  all 
that.  Everything  went  all  right  until  we 
started  for  the  Madeleine.  We  passed  a  cafe 
on  the  way  and  one  of  the  soldiers  asked: 
'What's  this  "vin"  I  see  around  on  shops?' 
I  told  him  that  it  was  the  French  word  for 
wine  and  that  it  was  pronounced  almost  like 
our  word  Van'  only  a  little  bit  more  nasal. 
They  all  looked  at  the  sign  then,  and  another 
soldier  said:  'I  suppose  that  "bieres"  there  is 
"beers,"  isn't  it?' 

"I  told  him  that  it  was  and  another  guessed 
that  'brune  ou  blonde'  must  mean  'dark  or 
light.'  When  I  said  that  it  did,  he  wanted  to 
know  if  he  couldn't  stop  and  have  one.  I  told 
him  that  I  couldn't  wait  for  him,  as  the  whole 
trip  was  on  a  schedule  and  we  had  to  be  at  the 
Madeleine  at  three  o'clock.  'Well,'  he  said,  'I 
guess  it'll  be  there  tomorrow,'  and  he  went  into 

52 


FRANCO-AMERICAN  HONEYMOON 

the  cafe.  Another  soldier  said:  'Save  a 
"blonde"  for  me,'  and  followed  him,  and  that 
was  two  gone. 

"After  I  had  showed  the  rest  the  Madeleine 
I  told  them  that  I  was  going  to  take  them  to 
St.  Augiistin.  The  artilleryman  wanted  to 
know  if  that  was  another  church.  I  said  it  was 
and  he  said  he  guessed  he'd  had  enough  for  a 
day.  I  tried  to  interest  him  in  the  paintings 
in  the  chapel  by  Bouguereau  and  Brisset,  but 
he  said  he  wasn't  used  to  walking  so  much 
anyway.  He  was  no  doughboy,  he  said,  and  he 
left  us.  We  lost  another  fellow  at  Maxim's 
and  the  fifth  one  disappeared  in  broad  day- 
light on  the  Boulevard  Malesherbes.  He  can 
count  up  to  twenty  in  French  and  he  knows 
how  to  say:  'Oii  est  I'hotel  St.  Anne?'  which  is 
army  headquarters,  so  I  guess  he's  all  right,  but 
I  haven't  an.  idea  in  the  world  what  became  of 
him." 

The  high  tide  in  the  American  conquest  of 
Paris  came  one  afternoon  in  July.  I  got  out 
of  a  taxicab  in  front  of  the  American  head- 
quarters in  the  Rue  Constantine  and  found 
that  a  big  crowd  had  gathered  in  the  Esplanade 

53 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

des  Invalides.  Now  and  again  the  crowd 
would  give  ground  to  make  room  for  an  Amer- 
ican soldier  running  at  top  speed.  One  of 
them  stood  almost  at  the  entrance  of  the  court- 
yard of  "Invalides."  His  back  was  turned 
toward  the  tomb  of  Napoleon  and  he  was 
knocking  out  flies  in  the  direction  of  the  Seine. 
Unfortunately  it  was  a  bit  far  to  the  river 
and  no  baseball  has  yet  been  knocked  into  that 
stream.  It  was  a  new  experience  for  Napoleon 
though.  He  has  heard  rifles  and  machine  guns 
and  other  loud  reports  in  the  streets  of  Paris, 
but  for  the  first  time  there  came  to  his  ears  the 
loud  sharp  crack  of  a  bat  swung  against  a 
baseball.  Since  he  could  not  see  from  out  the 
tomb  the  noise  may  have  worried  the  emperor. 
Perhaps  he  thought  it  was  the  British  winning 
new  battles  on  other  cricket  fields.  But  again 
he  might  not  worry  about  that  now.  He  might 
hop  up  on  one  toe  as  a  French  caricaturist 
pictured  him  and  cry:  "Vive  I'Angleterre." 

One  of  the  men  in  the  crowd  which  watched 
the  batting  practice  was  a  French  soldier 
headed  back  for  the  front.  At  any  rate  he  had 
his  steel  helmet  on  and  his  equipment  was  on 

54 


FRANCO-AMERICAN  HONEYMOON 

his  back.  His  stripes  showed  that  he  had  been 
in  the  war  three  years  and  he  had  the  croix  de 
guerre  with  two  palms  and  the  medaille  mili- 
taire.  His  interest  in  the  game  grew  so  high 
at  last  that  he  put  down  his  pack  and  his  hel- 
met and  joined  the  outfielders.  The  second  or 
third  ball  hit  came  in  his  direction.  He  ran 
about  in  a  short  circle  imder  the  descending 
ball  and  at  the  last  moment  he  thrust  both 
hands  in  front  of  his  face.  The  ball  came  be- 
tween them  and  hit  him  in  the  nose,  knocking 
him  down. 

His  nose  was  a  little  bloody,  but  he  was  up 
in  an  instant  grinning.  He  left  the  field  to 
pick  up  his  trench  hat  and  his  equipment.  The 
Americans  shouted  to  him  to  come  back.  He 
understood  the  drift  of  their  invitation,  but  he 
shook  his  head.  "C'est  dangereux,"  he  said, 
and  started  for  the  station  to  catch  his  train  for 
the  front. 


CHAPTER  V 

WITHIN  SOUND  OF  THE  GUNS 

The  men  had  traveled  to  Paris  in  passenger 
coaches,  but  when  it  came  time  to  move  the 
first  division  to  its  training  area  in  the  Vosges 
our  soldiers  rode  like  all  the  other  allied  armies 
in  the  famous  cars  upon  which  are  painted 
"Hommes  36;  chevaux  en  long,  8."  And,  of 
course,  anybody  who  knows  French  under- 
stands the  caption  to  mean  that  the  horses 
must  be  put  in  lengthwise  and  not  folded.  No 
restrictions  are  mentioned  as  to  the  method  of 
packing  the  "hommes." 

The  journey  lay  through  gorgeous  rolling 
country  which  was  all  a  sparkle  at  this  season 
of  the  year.  Presently  the  vineyards  were  left 
behind  and  the  hills  became  higher.  Now  and 
again  there  were  fringes  of  pine  trees.  At 
one  point  it  was  possible  to  see  a  French  cap- 
tive balloon  floating  just  beyond  the  hilltops, 

56 


WITHIN  SOUND  OF  GUNS 

but  we  could  not  hear  the  guns  yet.  French 
soldiers  in  troop  trains  and  camps  near  the 
track  cheered  the  Americans  and  even  a  few 
of  the  Germans  inside  a  big  stockade  waved 
at  the  men  who  were  moving  forward  to  study- 
war.  The  trains  stopped  at  a  little  town  which 
lay  at  the  foot  of  a  hill.  It  was  a  mean  little 
town,  but  on  the  hill  was  the  fine  old  tower 
of  a  castle  which  had  once  dominated  the  sur- 
rounding country. 

From  this  town,  which  was  chosen  as  divi- 
sional headquarters,  regiments  were  sent 
northeast  and  northwest  into  tiny  villages 
which  were  no  more  than  a  single  line  of  houses 
along  the  roadway.  A  few  one-story  wooden 
barracks  had  been  built  for  the  Americans,  but 
ninety  per  cent,  of  the  men  went  into  billets. 
They  were  quartered  in  the  lofts  of  barns  of 
the  better  sort.  The  billeting  officers  would 
not  consider  sheds  where  cattle  had  been  kept. 
Few  troops  had  been  quartered  in  this  part  of 
the  country  previously  and  so  the  barns  were 
moderately  clean. 

The  eff'ort  to  make  cleanliness  and  sanita- 
tion something  more  than  relative  terms  was 

57 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

the  first  thing  which  really  threatened  Franco- 
American  amity.  The  decision  of  American 
officers  that  all  manure  piles  must  be  removed 
from  in  front  of  dwelling  houses  met  a  startled 
and  universal  protest.  Elderly  Frenchwomen 
explained  with  great  feeling  that  the  manure 
piles  had  been  there  as  long  as  they  could  re- 
member and  that  no  one  had  ever  come  to  any 
harm  from  them.  The  American  officers  in- 
sisted, and  at  last  a  grudging  consent  was 
forced.  I  saw  one  old  lady  almost  on  the  point 
of  tears  as  she  watched  the  invaders  demolish 
her  manure  pile.  At  last  she  could  stand  no 
more.  "They  make  a  lot  of  dust,"  she  said 
critically,  and  went  into  the  house. 

A  few  days  after  the  Americans  arrived  in 
camp  came  their  instructors.  A  crack  division 
of  Alpine  Chasseurs  was  chosen  to  teach  the 
Americans.  Nobody  called  these  men  frog- 
gies.  They  called  them  "chassers."  It  was 
enough  to  see  them  march  to  know  that  they 
were  fighting  men.  Their  stride  was  short  and 
quick.  Each  step  was  taken  as  if  the  marcher 
was  eager  to  have  it  over  and  done  v/ith  so  that 
he  could  take  another.    Even  their  buglers  won 

58 


WITHIN  SOUND  OF  GUNS 

admiration,  for  they  had  a  trick  of  throwing 
their  instruments  in  the  air  and  catching  them 
again  that  brought  envy  to  the  heart  of  every 
American  band.  Indeed,  a  good  deal  of 
friendly  rivah'y  developed  from  the  beginning 
and  in  the  early  days,  at  least,  the  French  had 
all  the  better  of  it.  They  could  lift  heavier 
weights  than  our  men,  who  averaged  much 
younger.  Little  Frenchmen  standing  five  feet 
three  or  four  would  seize  a  rifle  close  to  the 
end  of  the  bayonet  and  slowly  raise  it  with  stiff 
arm  to  horizontal  and  down  again.  American 
farmer  boys  tried  and  failed.  Of  course,  this 
was  a  crack  French  division  which  drew  its 
men  from  various  organizations,  while  our 
division  was  just  the  average  lot  and  perhaps 
not  quite  that  since  there  was  a  larger  per- 
centage of  recruits  than  is  usually  found  in 
the  regular  army. 

Although  our  men  w^ere  somewhat  out- 
classed by  their  instructors  in  these  early  days, 
they  were  game  in  their  effort  to  keep  up  com- 
petition. Almost  the  first  work  to  which  the 
troops  were  set  was  trench  digging.  This  is 
one  of  the  most  important  arts  of  war  and  also 

59 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

the  most  tiresome.  Somebody  has  said  of  the 
Canadians:  "They  will  die  in  the  last  ditch, 
but  they  won't  dig  it."  The  Americans  have 
a  similar  aversion  for  work  with  pick  and 
shovel,  but  trench  digging  came  to  them  as  a 
competition.  I  saw  a  battalion  of  the  chas- 
seurs and  a  battalion  of  marines  set  to  work 
in  a  field  where  every  other  blow  of  the  pick 
hit  a  rock.  There  was  no  chance  to  loaf,  for 
when  a  marine  looked  over  his  shoulder  he 
could  see  the  French  picks  going  for  dear  life 
down  at  the  other  end  of  the  trench.  At  four- 
thirty  the  men  were  told  to  call  it  a  day.  The 
chasseurs  leaped  out  of  their  trench;  threw 
down  their  tools,  and  began  to  sing  at  top 
voice  a  popular  Parisian  love  ditty  entitled 
"II  faut  de  I'amour."  One  of  the  French  of- 
ficers told  me  afterwards  that  it  was  the  in- 
variable custom  of  his  men  to  sing  at  the  end 
of  work,  but  the  marines  thought  the  "chas- 
sers"  were  merely  showing  off  the  excellent 
nature  of  their  wind.  More  slowly  the  Amer- 
icans clambered  out  of  their  trench,  but  they 
were  ready  when  the  last  French  note  died 

60 


WITHIN  SOUND  OF  GUNS 

away  and  piped  up  somewhat  breathlessly: 
"Hail!  Hail!  the  gang's  all  here!" 

American  company  commanders  were  quick 
to  appreciate  the  value  of  organized  singing  in 
the  training  of  troops,  and  for  the  next  few 
days  the  doughboys  were  drilled  to  lift  their 
voices  as  well  as  their  picks.  Most  of  all, 
music  was  appreciated  in  the  long  hikes  of  the 
early  training  period.  A  good  song  did  much 
to  make  a  marching  man  forget  that  he  had  a 
fifty-pound  pack  on  his  back. 

"I  know  I'm  beginning  to  get  a  real  com- 
pany now,"  one  captain  told  me,  "because 
whenever  they're  beginning  to  feel  tired  they 
start  to  sing  and  freshen  up."  "No,"  he  said, 
in  reply  to  a  question,  "they  didn't  just  start. 
It  needed  a  little  fixing.  I  noticed  that  when 
the  Frenchmen  stopped  work  they  always 
started  back  to  camp  singing.  'We  can  do 
that,'  I  told  my  men  when  we  started  back. 
'Let's  hear  a  little  noise.'  Nothing  happened. 
Nobody  wanted  to  begin.  They  were  scared 
the  others  would  laugh  at  them.  I  can't  carry 
a  tune  two  feet,  but  I  just  struck  up  'We'll 
hang  the  damned  old  Kaiser  to  a  sour  apple 

Gl 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

tree'  to  the  tune  of  'John  Bro^vn's  Body.'  J^ 
few  jomed  in,  but  most  of  them  wouldn't  open 
their  mouths.  I  told  'em,  'I'm  just  going  to 
keep  on  marching  this  company  until  every- 
body's in  on  the  song.  I  don't  care  if  we  have 
to  march  all  night.'  That  got  'em  going.  Now 
they  like  it.  They're  thinking  up  new  songs 
every  day.    I  can  save  my  voice  now." 

One  of  the  reasons  for  sending  the  men  into 
the  Vosges  for  training  was  to  get  them  within 
sound  of  the  guns,  but  it  was  almost  a  week 
before  we  heard  any  of  the  doings  at  the  front. 
It  was  at  night  time  that  we  first  heard  the 
guns.  It  was  a  still,  windless  night  and  along 
about  eight  o'clock  they  began.  You  couldn't 
be  quite  sure  whether  you  heard  them  or  felt 
them,  but  something  was  stirring.  It  felt  or 
sounded  a  good  deal  as  if  some  giant  across 
the  hills  had  slammed  the  door  of  his  castle 
as  he  left  home  to  take  the  morning  train  for 
business.  Up  at  the  northern  end  of  the  train- 
ing area  the  sound  of  the  guns  was  much  more 
distinct.  In  fact,  they  were  loud  enough  some 
nights  to  become  identified  in  the  mind  as 
events  and  not  mere  rumblings.     A  Sammy 

62 


WITHIN  SOUND  OF  GUNS 

up  in  that  village  stopped  our  ear  one  morn- 
ing and  asked  if  we  couldn't  give  him  a  news- 
paper. 

"I  suppose  you  w^ant  to  know  how  the  base- 
ball games  are  coming  out,"  somebody  sug- 
gested. 

"To  hell  with  baseball,  I  want  to  know  about 
the  war,"  said  the  soldier.  "I'm  with  these 
mules,"  he  said,  pointing  to  half  a  dozen  ani- 
mals tethered  on  the  bank  of  a  canal.  "I've 
been  with  them  right  from  the  beginning,  I 
came  over  on  the  same  steamer  with  'em.     I 

rode  up  with  'em  in  the  train  from and 

here  we  are  again.  I  don't  hear  nothing. 
They  could  capture  Berlin  and  nobody'd  tell 
me  about  it.  All  I  do  is  feed  these  damned 
mules.  'Big  Bill,'  that  one  on  the  end,  is  sick, 
and  I've  got  to  hang  around  and  give  him  a 
pill  every  six  hours.  I  wish  he'd  choke.  I 
don't  like  him  as  well  as  the  rest  of  the  mules 
and  I  hate  'em  all. 

"It'll  be  fine,  won't  it,  when  somebody  asks 
me:  'Daddy,  what  did  you  do  in  the  great  war?' 
and  I  say:  'Oh,  I  sat  up  with  a  sick  mule.'  " 

Back  of  the  hills  from  some  indefinite  dis- 
63 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

tance  came  the  sound  of  big  guns.  They  raged 
persistently  for  ten  minutes  and  then  quit. 
"Big  Bill"  began  to  rear  around  and  kick. 
The  soldier  cursed  him. 

"Those  guns  were  going  like  that  all  night, 
but  mostly  around  two  o'clock,"  he  said.  "No- 
body around  here  knows  anj^thing  about  it.  I 
wish  I  could  get  hold  of  an  American  paper 
and  find  out  something  about  that  fight.  I've 
sent  to  JMemphis  for  The  News  Scimitar,  but 
somehow  it  don't  seem  to  get  here.  I  wish 
those  guns  was  near  enough  to  drop  something 
over  here  on  the  mules,  especially  'Big  Bill,' 
but  I'm  out  of  luck." 

The  nearest  approach  of  the  war  was  in  the 
air.  It  wasn't  long  before  German  planes  be- 
gan to  scout  over  the  territory  occupied  by  the 
Americans.  One  battalion  almost  saw  an  air 
fight.  It  would  have  seen  it  if  the  Major 
hadn't  said  "Attention!"  just  then.  The  bat- 
talion was  drilling  in  a  big  open  meadow  when 
there  came  from  the  East  first  a  whirr  and  then 
a  machine.  The  machine,  flying  high,  circled 
the  field.  The  soldiers  who  were  standing  at 
ease  stared  up  at  the  visitor,  but  it  was  too 

64 


WITHIN  SOUND  OF  GUNS 

high  to  see  the  identifying  marks.  Soon  there 
was  no  doubt  that  the  machine  was  German, 
for  Httle  white  splotches  appeared  in  the  sky. 
It  looked  as  if  Charlie  Chaplin  had  thrown  a 
cream  pie  at  heaven  and  it  had  splattered. 
An  anti-aircraft  gun  concealed  in  a  woods 
several  miles  away  was  firing  at  the  Boche. 
Presently  the  firing  ceased  and  there  was  a 
whirr  from  the  West.  A  French  plane  flew 
straight  in  the  direction  of  the  German,  who 
climbed  higher  and  higher.  As  the  planes 
drew  nearer  it  was  possible  to  see  machine  gun 
flashes,  but  just  then  the  INIajor  called  his  men 
to  attention.  Regulations  provide  that  eyes 
must  look  straight  ahead,  but  it  was  a  hard  test 
for  recruits  and  there  may  have  been  one  or 
two  who  stole  a  glance  up  there  where  the 
planes  were  fighting.  In  each  case  an  officer 
was  on  the  culprit  like  a  flash. 

"Keep  your  head  still,"  shouted  a  lieutenant. 
"That's  a  private  fight.  It's  got  nothing  to 
do  with  you." 

Soon  the  German  turned  and  flew  back  in 
the  direction  of  his  own  lines  and  when  the 
necks  of  the  doughboj^s  were  unfettered  and 

65 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

they  could  look  up  again  the  sky  was  clear. 
Even  the  cream  puff  splotches  were  gone. 

On  another  afternoon  a  Boche  plane  flew 
over  the  enth'e  American  area.  It  circled  a 
field  in  divisional  headquarters  where  a  base- 
ball game  was  in  progress  and  flew  home. 

"I  know  why  that  German  flew  home  after 

he    reached  ,"    an    officer    explained. 

"Don't  you  see?  He  was  trying  to  find  out  if 
we  were  Am^ericans  and  that  baseball  game 
proved  it  to  htm." 

The  greatest  aerial  display  occurred  on  a 
morning  when  a  French  officer  was  instruct- 
ing an  American  company  in  the  art  of  trench 
digging.  He  spoke  no  English,  but  an  inter- 
preter of  a  sort  was  making  what  shift  he 
could.  The  doughboys  tried  to  look  interested 
and  didn't  succeed.  It  was  harder  when  out 
from  behind  a  cloud  came  one  aeroplane,  then 
another  and  another.  When  half  a  dozen  had 
appeared  from  behind  the  cloud  one  doughboy 
could  stand  the  strain  no  longer. 

"Look,"  he  shouted,  "they're  hatching  them 
up  there." 

The  French  instructor  finally  granted  a  re- 
66 


WITHIN  SOUND  OF  GUNS 

cess  of  ten  minutes  but  before  the  time  was  up 
the  planes  had  maneuvered  out  of  sight.  In 
spite  of  all  the  German  activity  in  the  air  only- 
one  attempt  was  made  to  bomb  the  Americans 
during  the  summer.  A  single  bomb  was 
dropped  on  a  village  where  the  marines  were 
stationed,  but  it  did  no  damage. 

The  second  week  in  the  training  area  found 
the  doughboys  increasing  their  curriculum  to 
include  bombs  and  machine  guns.  It  had  not 
been  possible  to  do  much  in  the  finer  arts  of 
war  previously  because  of  the  absence  of  in- 
terpreters. A  number  of  these  had  been 
mobilized  now  but  they  varied  in  quality.  As 
one  American  officer  put  it,  "Interpreters  may 
be  divided  into  three  classes:  those  who  know 
no  English;  those  who  know  no  French;  and 
those  who  know  neither." 

However,  the  Americans  managed  to  get 
their  instruction  in  some  way  or  other.  No 
interpreters  were  needed  with  the  machine 
guns.  Instead  each  American  company  was 
divided  up  into  little  groups  and  a  chasseur 
placed  at  the  head  of  each  group.  I  watched 
the  instruction  and  found  that  little  language 

67 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

was  needed.  The  Frenchman  would  take  a 
machine  gun  or  automatic  rifle  apart  and  hold- 
ing up  each  part  give  its  French  name.  The 
Americans  paid  no  particular  attention  to  the 
outlandish  terms  which  the  French  used  for 
theu'  machine  gun  parts,  but  they  were  alert 
to  notice  the  manner  in  which  the  gun  was  put 
together  and  in  the  group  in  which  I  was  stand- 
ing two  Americans  were  able  to  put  the  gun 
together  without  having  any  parts  left  over 
after  a  single  demonstration. 

Of  course,  a  little  language  was  used.  Some 
of  the  marines  had  picked  up  a  little  very  vil- 
lainous French  in  Hayti  and  they  made  what 
shift  they  could  with  that.  A  few  French  Ca- 
nadians and  an  occasional  man  from  New  Or- 
leans could  converse  with  the  chasseurs  and 
one  or  two  phrases  had  been  acquired  by  men 
hitherto  entirely  ignorant  of  French.  "Qu'est- 
ce-que  c'est?"  was  used  bj^  the  purists  as  their 
form  of  interrogation,  but  there  were  others 
who  tried  to  make  "combien"  do  the  work. 
"Combien,"  which  we  pronounced  "come 
bean,"  was  stretched  for  many  purposes.  I 
have  heard  it  used  and  accepted  as  an  equiva- 

68 


WITHIN  SOUND  OF  GUNS 

lent  for  "whereabouts,"  "what  did  you  say," 
"why,"  "which  one"  and  "will  you  please  show 
us  once  more  how^  to  put  that  machine  gun  to- 
gether." 

Not  only  did  the  Americans  show  an  apti- 
tude for  getting  the  hang  of  the  mechanism  of 
the  machine  gun  and  the  automatic  rifle,  but 
they  shot  well  with  them  after  a  little  bit  of 
practice. 

The  first  man  I  watched  at  work  with  the 
automatic  rifle  was  green.  He  had  taken  the 
gun  apart  and  put  it  together  again  with  an  oc- 
casional "regardez"  and  bit  of  demonstration 
from  one  of  the  Frenchmen,  but  the  weapon 
was  not  yet  his  pal.  He  picked  the  gun  up 
somewhat  gingerly  and  aimed  at  the  line  of 
targets  a  couple  of  hundred  yards  away.  Then 
he  pulled  the  trigger  and  the  bucking  thing, 
which  seemed  to  be  intent  on  wriggling  out  of 
his  arms,  sprayed  the  top  of  the  hill  with  bul- 
lets. The  French  instructor  made  a  laughing 
comment  and  an  American  who  spoke  the  lan- 
guage explained,  "He  says  you  ought  to  be  in 
the  anti-aircraft  service." 

The  next  man  to  try  his  luck  was  a  non- 
69 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

commissioned  officer  long  in  the  army.  He 
patted  the  gun  and  wooed  it  a  little  in  whispers 
before  he  shot.  It  was  a  French  gun,  to  be 
sure,  but  the  language  of  firearms  is  interna- 
tional. "Behave,  Betsy,"  he  said  and  she  did. 
He  sprayed  shots  along  the  line  of  targets  at 
the  bottom  of  the  hill  as  the  gun  clattered  away 
with  all  the  clamor  of  a  riveting  machine  at 
seven  in  the  morning.  When  they  looked  at 
the  targets  they  found  he  had  scored  thirty 
hits  out  of  thirty-four  and  some  were  bull's- 
eyes.  The  French  instructor  was  so  pleased 
that  he  stepped  forward  as  if  to  hug  the  an- 
cient sergeant  but  the  veteran's  look  of  horror 
dissuaded  him. 

Bombing  proved  the  most  popular  part  of 
training  and  particularly  as  soon  as  it  was  pos- 
sible to  work  with  the  live  article.  First  of 
all  dummy  bombs  were  issued.  A  French  of- 
ficer carefully  explained  that  the  bomb  should 
be  thrown  after  four  moves,  counting  one,  two, 
three,  four,  as  he  posed  something  like  a  shot 
putter  before  he  let  the  bomb  go  with  an  over- 
hand, stiff,  armed  fling.  He  illustrated  the 
method  several  times,  but  the  first  American 

70 


WITHIN  SOUND  OF  GUNS 

to  throw  sent  the  bomb  spinning  out  on  a  line 
just  as  if  he  were  hurrying  a  throw  to  first 
from  deep  short.  The  Frenchman  reproved 
him  and  explained  carefully  that,  although  it 
might  be  possible  to  throw  a  bomb  a  long  way 
jn  the  manner  in  which  a  baseball  is  thrown, 
it  was  necessary  for  a  bomber  to  hurl  many 
missiles  and  that  he  must  preserve  his  arm.  He 
also  pointed  out  that  the  bomb  would  never 
land  in  the  trenches  of  the  enemy  unless  it  was 
thrown  with  a  considerable  arc. 

The  men  then  kept  to  the  exercises  laid 
down  by  the  instructor,  but  just  before  they 
stopped  one  or  two  could  not  resist  the  tempta- 
tion of  again  "putting  something  on  to  it"  and 
letting  the  bomb  sail  out  fast.  One  lefthander 
who  had  pitched  for  a  season  in  the  Southern 
League  was  anxious  to  make  some  experiments 
to  see  if  he  couldn't  throw  a  bomb  with  an  out 
curve  but  he  was  informed  that  such  an  ac- 
complishment would  have  no  military  utility. 

The  first  American  wounded  in  France  was 
the  victim  of  a  bombing  accident.  A  soldier 
threw  a  live  bomb  more  than  thirty  meters  from 
a  trench.    When  the  bomb  burst  a  fragment 

71 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

came  whirling  back  in  some  curious  manner 
and  fell  into  a  box  of  grenades  upon  which  a 
lieutenant  was  sitting.  The  fragment  cut  the 
pin  of  one  of  the  bombs  and  the  whole  box 
went  oiF  with  a  bang.  The  lieutenant  received 
only  a  slight  cut  on  his  forehead,  but  a  French 
interpreter  thirty  yards  away  was  knocked  un- 
conscious and  lost  the  sight  of  his  right  eye. 
This  Frenchman  had  spent  two  years  under 
fire  at  Verdun  without  being  scratched  and 
here  was  his  first  wound  come  upon  him  on  a 
quiet  afternoon  in  a  meadow  miles  from  the 
lines. 

The  men  threw  bombs  from  deep  trenches 
and  they  were  instructed  to  keep  cover  closely 
after  hurling  a  grenade  just  as  if  there  was  a 
German  trench  across  the  way.  But  curiosity 
was  too  strong  for  them.  Each  wanted  to  see 
where  his  particular  bomb  hit  and  how  much 
earth  it  would  tear  up.  The  bombs  made  only 
small  scars  in  the  earth,  but  they  sent  frag- 
ments of  steel  casing  flying  in  all  directions 
and  several  men  were  cut  about  the  face  by 
splinters. 

The  seeming  inability  of  the  American  to 
72 


WITHIN  SOUND  OF  GUNS 

visualize  battle  conditions  in  training  retards 
his  progress  in  spite  of  his  aptitude  in  other 
directions.  A  French  officer  was  directing  a 
platoon  of  Americans  one  day  in  skirmishing. 
They  were  to  fire  a  round,  run  forward  twenty 
paces,  throw  themselves  flat  and  run  forward 
again.  One  doughboy  would  raise  himself  up 
on  his  elbows  and  look  about.  The  French- 
man, very  much  excited,  ran  over  to  him  and 
said,  "You  must  keep  your  head  down  or  you 
will  get  shot.  You  must  remember  that  bul- 
lets are  flying  all  about  you." 

As  soon  as  the  instructor's  back  was  turned 
the  soldier  was  up  on  his  elbows  again. 
"Hell,"  he  said,  "there  ain't  any  bullets." 

In  later  phases  of  training  the  inferiority  of 
the  American  to  the  French  in  imagination 
showed  clearly.  French  veterans  or  recruits 
for  that  matter  could  work  themselves  up  to 
a  frenzy  in  sham  battles  and  dash  into  an  empty 
trench  with  a  shout  as  if  it  were  filled  with  Ger- 
mans. Americans  could  not  do  that.  They 
found  it  difficult  to  forget  that  practice  was 
just  practice. 

\ 


CHAPTER  VI 

SUNNY  FRANCE 

Later  on  "Sunny  France"  became  a  mock- 
ing byword  uttered  by  wet  and  muddy  men, 
but  during  the  early  days  in  the  training  area 
no  one  had  any  just  complaint  about  the 
weather.  Come  to  think  of  it  there  wasn't  any- 
thing very  wrong  with  those  early  days  in 
rural  France.  Five  o'clock  was  pretty  early 
for  getting  up  but  the  sun  could  do  it  and  keep 
cheerful.  It  was  glorious  country  with  hills 
and  forests  and  plowed  fields  and  red  roofed 
villages  and  smooth  white  roads.  The  coun- 
try people  didn't  throw  their  hats  in  the  air 
like  Parisians,  but  they  were  kindly  though 
calm, 

"Down  in ,"  said  a  little  doughboy  who 

came  from  an  Indiana  farm,  "everybody  you 
meet  says  'bon  jour'  to  you  whether  they  know 
you  or  not.     That  means  'good  morning.'     I 

74 


SUNNY  FRANCE 

was  in  Chicago  once  and  they  don't  do  it 
there." 

It  wasn't  Eden  though.  There  was  the  to- 
bacco situation  against  that  theory.  To  a 
good  many  soldiers,  pleasant  weather  and 
kindly  folk  and  ample  rations  meant  nothing 
much.  These  were  minor  things.  The  quar- 
termaster had  no  Bull  Durham.  When  the 
supply  of  American  tobacco  and  cigarettes 
ran  out  the  men  tried  the  French  products  but 
not  for  long.  "So  they  call  these  Grenades," 
muttered  a  soldier  as  he  examined  a  popular 
French  brand  of  cigarettes,  "I  guess  that's  be- 
cause you'd  better  throw  'em  away  right  after 
you  set  'em  going." 

French  matches  were  less  popular  than 
French  tobacco.  The  kind  they  sold  in  our 
town  and  thereabouts  were  all  tipped  with 
sulphur  and  usually  exploded  with  a  blue  flame 
maiming  the  smoker  and  amusing  the  specta- 
tors. Political  economists  and  others  inter- 
ested in  the  law  of  supply  and  demand  may  be 
interested  to  know  that  when  the  tobacco  fa- 
mine was  at  its  height  a  package  of  Bull  Dur- 
ham worth  five  cents  in  America  was  sold  by 

75 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

one  soldier  to  another  for  five  francs.  This 
shortage  has  since  been  relieved  from  several 
sources,  but  there  has  never  been  more  tobacco 
than  the  soldiers  could  smoke. 

Reading  matter  was  also  ardently  desired 
during  the  early  months  in  the  Vosges.  An 
enterprising  storekeeper  in  one  town  sent  a 
hurry  call  to  Paris  for  English  books  and  a 
week  later  she  proudly  displayed  the  follow- 
ing volumes  on  her  shelves:  "The  Life  of 
Dean  Stanley,"  "Sermons  by  the  Rev.  C.  H. 
Spurgeon,"  "The  Jubilee  Book  of  Cricket," 
"The  Reminiscences  of  Sir  Henry  Hawkins 
(Lord  of  Brampton),"  and  "The  Recollec- 
tions of  the  Rt.  Hon.  Sir  Algernon  West." 

A  few  companies  had  libraries  of  their  own. 
I  wonder  who  made  the  selection  of  titles.  The 
volumes  I  picked  out  at  random  in  one  village 
were:  "The  Family  Life  of  Heinrich  Heine," 
"Fourteen  Weeks  in  Astronomy,"  "Recollec- 
tions and  Letters  of  Renan,"  "Education  and 
the  Higher  Life,"  "Bible  Stories  for  the 
Young,"  and  "Henry  the  Eighth  and  His  Six 
Wives."  The  librarian  said  that  the  last  was 
the  most  popular  book  in  the  collection  al- 

76 


SUNNY  FRANCE 

though  several  readers  admitted  that  it  did  not 
come  up  to  expectations.  Just  as  I  was  going 
out  the  top  sergeant  came  in  to  return  a  book. 
I  asked  him  what  it  was.  He  said,  "It's  a  book 
called  'When  Patty  Went  to  College.'  " 

Our  town  was  big  and  had  moving  pictures 
twice  a  week,  but  up  the  line  in  the  little  vil- 
lages there  was  no  such  source  of  amusement. 
After  the  men  had  been  in  training  for  a  week 
or  more,  a  French  Red  Cross  outfit  stopped 
at  one  of  the  villages  with  a  traveling  movie 
outfit  and  announced  that  they  would  show  a 
picture  that  night.  According  to  the  an^ 
nouncement  the  picture  was  "Chariot  en  *Le 
Vagabond.'  "  It  sounded  foreign  and  for- 
bidding. The  doughboys  anticipated  trouble 
with  the  titles  and  the  closeups  of  what  the 
heroine  wrote  and  all  the  various  printed 
words  which  go  to  make  a  moving  picture  in- 
telligible. Still  they  were  patient  when  the 
title  of  the  picture  was  flashed  on  the  screen 
and  they  tried  to  look  interested.  The  first 
scene  was  a  road  winding  up  to  a  distant  hill 
and  down  the  highway  with  eccentric  gait 
there  walked  a  little  man  strangely  reminis- 

77 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

cent.  He  drew  nearer  and  nearer  and  as  the 
figure  came  into  full  view  the  soldier  in  front 
of  me  could  stand  the  strain  no  longer.  He 
jumped  to  his  feet. 

"I'm  a  son  of  a  gun,"  he  shouted,  "if  it  isn't 
Charlie  Chaplin." 

Recognition  upon  the  part  of  the  audience 
was  instantaneous  and  enthusiasm  unbounded. 
If  the  Americans  go  out  tomorrow  and  cap- 
ture Berlin  they  cannot  possibly  show  more 
joy  than  they  did  at  the  sight  of  Charlie  Chap- 
lin in  France.  Never  again  will  the  French 
be  able  to  fool  them  by  disguising  him  as 
"Chariot." 

After  a  bit  the  soldiers  learned  to  entertain 
themselves  and  several  companies  developed  a 
number  of  talented  performers.  The  first 
company  show  I  attended  mixed  boxing  and 
music.  They  began  with  boxing.  There  was 
a  short  intermission  during  which  the  first 
tenor  fixed  up  a  bloody  nose.  He  had  re- 
ceived a  bit  the  worst  of  it  in  the  heavyweight 
bout.  The  other  members  of  the  quartet 
gave  him  cotton  and  encouragement.  Finally 
he  put  on  his  shirt  and  hitching  up  his  voice, 


SUNNY  FRANCE 

began,  "Naught  but  a  few  faded  roses  can  my 
sweet  story  tell."  His  comrades  joined  him 
at  "My  heart  was  ever  light,"  and  they  fin- 
ished the  ballad  in  perfect  alignment. 

Almost  all  the  songs  were  sentimental  and 
many  were  old.  They  had  "Dearie,"  and 
"Where  the  River  Shannon  Flows,"  and  that 
one  about  Ireland  falling  out  of  Heaven  (just 
as  if  the  devil  himself  had  not  done  the  very 
same  thing) .  Later  there  were  "Mother  Ma- 
chree"  and  "Old  Kentucky  Home."  Patriot- 
ism was  not  neglected.  "When  I  Get  Back 
Home  Again  to  the  U.  S.  A."  was  the  favor- 
ite among  the  recent  war  songs.  The  only 
savor  of  army  life  in  the  program  on  this 
particular  evening  was  in  a  couple  of  Mexican 
songs  brought  up  from  the  border  by  men  who 
went  to  get  Villa.  They  brought  back  "Cuca- 
racha"  with  all  its  seventeen  obscene  Spanish 
verses.  There  was  also  one  parody  inspired 
by  this  war  and  sung  to  the  tune  of  "My  Lit- 
tle Girl,  I'm  Dreaming  of  You."  It  went 
something  like  this: 

America,  I'm  dreaming  of  you 
And  I  long  for  you  each  day 
79 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

America,  I'm  fighting  for  you 

Tho'  you're  many  miles  away 

We'll  knock  the  block  right  off  the  Kaiser 

And  we'll  drive  them  'cross  the  Rhine — 

And  then  we'll  sail  back  home  to  you,  dear 

To  the  tune  of  "Wacht  am  Rhein" ! 

The  American  soldier  does  not  seem  to  be 
much  of  a  song  maker.  Songs  by  soldiers  and 
for  soldiers  are  not  common  with  us  yet.  We 
have  nothing  as  close  to  the  spirit  of  the 
trenches  as  the  British  ditty  "I  want  to  go 
home,"  which  always  leaves  the  auditor  in 
doubt  as  to  whether  he  should  take  it  seri- 
ously and  weep  or  humorously  and  laugh. 
Possibly  there  is  something  of  both  elements 
in  the  song.  The  mixture  has  been  typical  of 
the  British  attitude  toward  the  war.  Here 
is  the  song: 

I  want  to  go  'ome 

I   want   to   go   'ome 

The  Maxims  they  spit 

And  the  Johnsons  they  roar 

I  don't  want  to  go  to  the  front  any  more 

Oh  take  me  over  the  seas 

Where  the  Alley-mans  can't  get  at  me 

Oh  my;  I  don't  want  to  die, 

I  want  to  go  'ome. 

80 


SUNNY  FRANCE 

The  American  army  is  still  looking  for  a 
song.  None  of  the  new  ones  has  achieved  uni- 
versal popularity.  However  the  many  who 
heard  the  quartet  of  Company  L  sing  on 
this  particular  evening  seemed  to  have  no  ob- 
jection to  the  old  songs.  In  fact  they  were 
new  to  many  in  the  audience  for  as  the  con- 
cert went  on  French  soldiers  joined  the  audi- 
ence and  townspeople  hung  about  the  edges 
of  the  crowd.  They  listened  politely  and  ap- 
plauded, though  indeed  one  must  get  a  strange 
impression  of  America  if  his  introduction  is 
through  our  popular  songs.  Such  a  foreigner 
is  in  danger  of  believing  that  ours  is  a  June 
land  in  which  the  moon  is  always  shining  upon 
a  young  person  known  as  "little  girl."  Yet 
the  French  expressed  no  astonishment  at  the 
songs.  Only  one  feature  puzzled  them  pro- 
foundly. At  the  end  of  a  particularly  effec- 
tive song  the  captain  said,  "Those  men  sang 
that  very  well.  Bring  'em  each  a  glass  of 
water." 

No  villager  could  quite  understand  why  a 
man  who  had  committed  no  more  palpable 
crime  than  tenor  singing  should  be  forced  to 

81 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

partake  of  a  drink  which  is  cold,  tasteless  and 
watery. 

Most  the  villages  in  our  part  of  France  had 
only  one  dimension.  They  consisted  of  a  line 
of  houses  on  either  side  of  the  roadway  and 
they  were  always  huddled  together.  Land  is 
too  valuable  in  France  to  waste  it  on  lawns 
and  suchlike.  Some  of  the  villages  were  tiny 
and  shabby,  but  none  was  too  small  or  too 
mean  to  be  without  its  little  cafe.  It  took  the 
doughboys  some  little  time  to  get  over  their 
interest  in  the  startling  fact  that  champagne 
was  within  the  reach  of  the  working  man,  but 
they  went  back  to  beer  in  due  course  and  now 
champagne  is  among  the  things  which  shop- 
keepers must  not  sell  to  American  soldiers. 
The  prohibition  of  the  sale  of  cognac  and 
champagne  is  all  that  the  army  needs.  Beer 
and  light  wines  are  not  a  menace  to  the  health 
or  behavior  of  our  army.  Beer  is  by  far  the 
most  popular  drink  and  it  would  be  an  ambi- 
tious man  indeed  who  would  seek  the  slightest 
deviation  from  sobriety  in  the  thin  war  beer  of 
France.     He  might  drown. 

Absolute  prohibition  for  the  army  in  France 
82 


SUNNY  FRANCE 

would  be  well  nigh  impossible.  It  would 
mean  that  every  inn  and  shop  and  railroad 
station  and  farmhouse  would  have  to  be  classed 
as  out  of  bounds.  In  fact  prohibition  could 
not  be  enforced  unless  our  soldiers  were  or- 
dered never  to  venture  within  four  walls. 
Wine  is  to  be  had  under  every  roof  in  France 
and  you  can  get  it  also  in  not  a  few  places 
where  the  roof  has  been  shot  to  pieces.  The 
French  are  interested  in  temperance  just  now. 
On  many  walls  posters  are  exhibited  showing 
a  German  soldier  and  a  black  bottle  with  the 
caption,  "They  are  both  the  enemies  of 
France,"  but  when  a  Frenchman  talks  of  tem- 
perance or  prohibition  or  the  abolition  of  the 
liquor  traffic  he  never  thinks  of  including  wine 
or  beer.  The  civil  authorities  of  France  would 
not  be  much  use  in  helping  the  American  army 
enforce  a  bone-dry  order.  They  simply 
wouldn't  understand  it. 

There  was  some  excessive  drinking  when 
the  army  first  came  to  France  but  it  has  been 
checked.  A  number  of  influences  have  made 
for  discretion.  One  of  the  most  potent  is  the 
opportunity  for  promotion  in  an  army  in  the 

83 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

field.  Officers  have  been  quick  to  point  this 
out  to  their  men.  One  captain  called  his  com- 
pany together  in  the  early  days  and  said, 
"Some  of  the  men  in  this  company  are  going 
out  and  getting  pinko,  stinko,  sloppy  drunk. 
Any  man  who  gets  drunk  goes  in  the  guard 
house  of  course  and  more  than  that  he  will  get 
no  promotion  from  me.  I'm  going  to  pick  my 
sergeants  from  the  fellows  that  have  got  sense. 
iYou  may  notice  that  some  of  the  men  who 
drink  are  old  soldiers.  Don't  take  an  example 
from  that.  Remember  that's  why  they're  old 
soldiers.  There  isn't  any  sense  in  blowing  all 
your  money  in  for  booze.  Now  if  I  took  my 
pay  in  a  lump  at  the  end  of  a  month  I  could 
buy  every  cafe  in  this  town  and  I  could  stay 
drunk  for  a  year.  That  would  be  fine  busi- 
ness, wouldn't  it?" 

"I  guess  maybe  I  exaggerated  a  little  about 
the  length  of  time  I  could  stay  drunk,"  the 
captain  told  me  afterwards,  "but  do  you  know 
that  talk  seems  to  have  done  the  trick." 

One  factor  which  worked  for  temperance 
was  the  French  fashion  of  making  drinking  de- 
liberate and  social.     When  an  American  can 

84 


SUNNY  FRANCE 

be  induced  to  sit  dovvn  to  his  potion  he  is  com- 
paratively safe.  These  little  village  cafes  did 
no  harm  after  the  first  brief  period  when  the 
American  soldier  had  his  fling  and  they  served 
the  good  purpose  of  encouraging  fraterniza- 
tion between  doughboy  and  poilu. 

The  contact  with  French  soldiers  brought 
no  great  vocabulary  to  our  men  but  if  they 
learned  few  words  they  did  get  the  hang  of 
making  their  wants  understood.  In  a  week  or 
two  innkeepers  or  women  in  shops  had  no 
trouble  at  all  in  attending  to  the  wants  of 
Americans.  Probably  the  French  people 
made  somewhat  faster  linguistic  progress  than 
the  soldiers.  The  Americans  were  willing  to 
be  met  at  least  halfway.  When  I  asked  one 
doughboy,  "How  do  you  get  along  with  the 
French?  Can  you  make  them  understand 
you?"  he  said,  "Why,  they're  coming  along 
pretty  well.  I  think  most  of  'em  will  pick  it 
up  in  time." 

But  there  was  one  French  word  the  soldiers 
had  to  learn.  That  was  "fineesh."  The  chil- 
dren forced  that  word  upon  them.  They  were 
always  at  the  heels  of  the  American  soldiers. 

85 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

They  galloped  the  doughboys  up  and  down  the 
village  streets  in  furious  piggyback  charges. 
They  borrowed  jam  from  company  cooks  and 
rode  in  the  supply  trucks.  Of  course  there 
had  to  be  an  end  to  the  rides,  sometimes,  and 
even  to  the  jam  and  the  only  way  to  convince 
the  children  of  France  that  an  absolute  un- 
shakable limit  had  been  reached  was  to  thrust 
two  hands  aloft  and  cry  "fineesh."  The  old 
women  liked  the  doughboys  too  because  they 
would  draw  water  from  the  wells  for  them 
and  occasionally  lend  a  hand  in  moving  wood 
or  wheat  or  fodder.  Nor  do  I  mean  to  imply 
that  the  younger  women  of  the  little  villages 
did  not  esteem  the  doughboys.  "Tell  'em  back 
home  that  there  aren't  any  good  looking 
women  in  France,"  was  the  message  that  ever 
so  many  soldiers  asked  me  to  convey  to  anx- 
:'ous  individuals  in  America.  I  hand  the  mes- 
sage on  but  must  refuse  to  pass  upon  its  sin- 
cerity. 

American  officers  got  along  well  with  the 
French  but  they  never  reached  the  same  de- 
gree of  chumminess  that  the  men  did.  They 
met  French  officers  at  more  or  less  formal 

86 


SUNNY  FRANCE 

luncheons  and  had  to  go  through  a  routine  of 
speeches  largely  concerned  with  Lafayette 
and  Rochambeau  and  Washington.  Poilus 
and  doughboj^s  did  not  go  so  far  back  for  their 
subjects  of  conversation.  The  American  en- 
listed man  had  a  great  advantage  over  his  of- 
ficer in  the  matter  of  language.  He  might 
know  less  French,  but  he  was  much  more  ready 
to  experiment.  An  officer  did  not  like  to 
make  mistakes.  His  was  defensive  French,  a 
weapon  to  be  used  guardedly  in  cases  of  ex- 
treme need.  When  a  visiting  officer  hurled 
a  compliment  at  him  he  replied,  but  he  seldom 
took  the  initiative.  After  all  he  was  an  Amer- 
ican officer  and  he  feared  to  make  himself  ri- 
diculous by  poor  pronunciation  and  worse 
grammar.  The  soldier  had  no  such  scruples. 
He  saw  no  reason  why  he  should  be  any  more 
abashed  by  French  grammar  than  by  English 
and  as  for  pronunciation  he  followed  the  ad- 
vice of  a  little  pamphlet  called  "The  Amer- 
ican in  France"  which  was  rushed  out  by  some 
French  firm  for  sale  to  the  American  army. 
In  the  matter  of  pronunciation  the  book  said, 
*'Since  pronunciation  is  the  most  difficult  part 

87 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

of  any  language  the  publishers  of  this  book 
have  decided  to  omit  it."  The  soldiers  were 
ready  to  adopt  this  method  and  only  wished 
that  it  could  be  extended  to  other  things.  To 
trench  digging  for  instance. 

The  most  daring  man  in  the  use  of  an  unfa- 
miliar language  was  not  a  soldier  but  a  sec- 
ond lieutenant.  He  took  great  pride  in  his 
talent  for  pantomime  and  asserted  that  his  vo- 
cabulary of  some  thirty  words  and  his  gestures 
filled  all  his  needs.  He  was  somewhat  star- 
tled though  on  an  afternoon  when  he  went  into 
a  shop  to  purchase  "B.  V.  D.'s"  and  found  the 
store  in  charge  of  the  young  daughter  of  the 
proprietor.  Pantomime  seemed  hardly  the 
thing  and  so  he  paused  long  to  think  up  a  word 
for  the  garment  he  wanted  or  some  approxima- 
tion. At  last  he  smiled  and  exclaimed  brightly, 
*'Chemise  pour  jambes,  s'il  vous  plait." 

Stores  were  not  the  strong  point  of  our  bit 
of  France.  We  soon  came  to  regard  our  town 
as  a  metropolis  because  people  journeyed 
there  to  make  "shopping  tours."  One  after- 
noon I  marked  fifteen  visiting  soldiers  with 
their  eyes  glued  against  a  shop  window  which 

88 


SUNNY  FRANCE 

displayed  half  a  dozen  electric  flashlights,  two 
quarts  of  champagne,  a  French-English  dic- 
tionary and  a  limited  assortment  of  postcards. 
These,  of  course,  were  barred  from  the  mail 
by  censorship  but  the  soldiers  collected  them 
to  be  taken  home  after  the  war. 

"These  French  postcards  aren't  exactly 
what  some  of  the  boys  back  home  are  going  to 
expect,"  one  soldier  admitted.  "I  went  to 
three  shops  now  but  the  others  have  been  ahead 
of  me  and  all  I  could  get  was  these  two.  One's 
a  picture  called  'I'eglise'  and  the  other's  'la 
maison  de  Jeanne  d'Arc'  " 

The  shops  had  hard  work  in  keeping  up 
with  more  commodities  than  picture  postcards. 
There  seemed  to  be  an  insatiable  demand  for 
canned  peaches  and  sardines.  Somehow  or 
other  men  who  have  been  on  a  long  march 
simply  crave  either  sardines  or  canned  peaches. 
The  doughboys  did  a  good  deal  of  eating  at 
their  own  expense.  Army  food  was  plentiful 
and  moderately  varied.  Beans  and  corned  beef 
hash  were  served  a  good  many  times  perhaps, 
but  there  was  no  lack  of  fresh  meat  and  there 
was  plenty  of  jam  and  of  carrots  and  onions 

89 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

and  heavy  gravy.  Food,  however,  was  an  out- 
let for  spending  money  and  in  some  villages 
the  men  got  so  eager  that  they  would  buy  any- 
thing. Little  traveling  shops  in  wagons  came 
through  the  smaller  villages  in  the  northern 
part  of  the  training  area  loaded  with  all  sorts 
of  gimcracks  intended  for  the  peasant  trade. 
The  peddlers  had  no  time  to  put  in  a  special 
line  for  the  soldiers.  They  found  that  it  was 
not  necessary.  Desperate  men  with  pockets 
full  of  money  would  purchase  even  the  imita- 
tion tortoise  shell  sidecombs  which  the  itiner- 
ant merchants  had  to  sell. 

The  purchasing  capacity  of  the  soldier  was 
not  limited  to  his  pay  alone.  The  villagers 
were  wildly  excited  about  the  white  bread  is- 
sued to  the  American  army.  It  was  the  first 
they  had  seen  since  the  second  year  of  the  war. 
One  old  lady  seized  a  loaf  which  was  pre- 
sented to  her  and  crying  "il  est  beau,"  sat 
down  upon  a  doorstep  and  began  to  eat  the 
bread  as  if  it  were  cake.  The  rate  of  exchange 
fluctuated  somewhat  but  there  were  days  when 
a  loaf  of  white  bread  could  be  exchanged  for 
a  whole  roast  chicken. 

90 


SUNNY  FRANCE 

The  eagerness  of  the  American  soldier  to 
spend  his  money  had  the  result  of  tempting 
French  storekeepers  to  raise  their  prices  and 
as  the  cost  of  living  mounted  the  civilian  pop- 
ulation began  to  complain.  Even  the  soldiers 
had  suspicions  at  last  that  they  were  being 
charged  too  much  in  some  stores  and  the 
American  officers  took  over  price  control  as 
another  of  their  many  responsibilities. 

"I  went  to  the  mayor,"  one  town  major  ex- 
plained, "and  I  said,  'Look  here.  Bill,  I  don't 
mind  'the  shopkeepers  putting  a  little  some- 
thing over.  All  I  ask  is  that  they  just  act 
reasonable.  They'll  get  all  the  money  in  time 
anyhow,  and  so  I  wish  you'd  tip  them  off  not 
to  be  in  so  much  of  a  hurry.'  He  couldn't 
talk  any  English,  that  mayor  couldn't,  but  the 
interpreter  told  him  about  it  and  he  went  right 
to  the  front  for  us.  From  that  day  to  this 
We've  had  only  one  complaint  about  anything 
in  our  village.  That  came  from  an  old  lady 
who  had  some  doughboys  billeted  in  a  barn 
next  to  the  shed  where  she  kept  her  sheep. 
She  came  to  me  and  said  the  soldiers  talked  so 
much  at  night  that  the  sheep  couldn't  sleep." 

91 


CHAPTER  VII 

PERSHING 

Nobody  will  ever  call  him  "Papa"  Pershing. 
He  is  a  stepfather  to  the  inefficient  and  even 
when  he  is  pleased  he  says  little.  In  the  mat- 
ter of  giving  praise  the  General  is  a  homeo- 
path. For  that  reason  he  can  gain  enormous 
effect  in  the  rare  moments  when  he  chooses  to 
compliment  a  man  or  an  organization. 
Pershing  believes  that  discipline  is  the  foun- 
dation'of  an  army. 

"I  think,"  said  one  young  American  officer, 
"that  his  favorite  military  leader  is  Joshua  be- 
cause he  made  the  sun  and  the  moon  stand  at 
attention."  In  other  words  Pershing  is  a  sol- 
diers' soldier.  No  man  can  strike  such  hard 
blows  as  he  does  and  leave  no  scars.  There 
are  men  here  and  there  in  the  army  who  do 
not  love  him  but  their  criticism  almost  invari- 
ably ends,  "but  I  guess  I'll  have  to  admit  that 
he's  a  good  soldier." 

92 


PERSHING 

Pershing  is  not  a  disciplinarian  merely  for 
the  sake  of  discipline  but  he  believes  that  it 
is  the  gauge  of  the  temper  of  any  military  or- 
ganization. His  interest  in  detail  is  insatiable. 
He  can  read  a  man's  soul  through  his  boots 
or  his  buttons.  Next  to  the  Kaiser,  Pershing 
hates  nothing  so  much  as  rust  and  dust  and 
dirt.  Perhaps  round  shoulders  should  go  in 
the  list  as  well,  and  pockets.  Certainly  he 
makes  good  the  things  he  preaches.  There  is 
no  finer  figure  in  any  army  in  Europe.  The 
General  is  fit  from  the  tip  of  his  glistening 
boots  to  his  hat  top.  We  saw  him  once  after 
he  had  walked  through  a  front  line  trench  on 
a  rainy  day.  There  were  sections  of  that 
trench  where  the  mud  was  over  a  man's  shoe- 
tops  and  the  back  area  which  had  to  be  crossed 
before  the  trench  system  was  reached  was  a 
great  lake  of  casual  water  fed  at  its  fringes  by 
roaring  rain  torrents.  And  yet  the  general 
came  out  of  the  trench  without  a  speck  of  mud 
on  his  boots  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  had 
plunged  along  with  no  apparent  regard  for  his 
footing. 

There  was  dust  behind  him,  though,  on  the 
93 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

afternoon  he  first  came  to  the  training  area  to 
see  his  men.  News  reached  our  town  that  the 
general  was  up  in  the  northern  end  of  the 
training  zone  and  moving  fast.  An  officer 
passing  by  gave  me  a  hft  in  his  car  and  when 
we  arrived  at  the  next  village  half  a  dozen  sol- 
diers who  were  sitting  on  a  bench  jumped  up 
for  dear  life  and  jarred  themselves  to  the  very; 
heels  with  the  stiff  est  of  military  salutes. 

The  officer  grinned.  "Pershing's  in  town," 
he  said  and  so  he  was. 

We  found  him  in  a  kitchen  talking  about 
onions  to  a  cook.  He  asked  each  soldier  in 
turn  what  sort  of  food  he  was  getting.  Some 
were  too  frightened  to  do  more  than  mumble 
an  inaudible  answer.  A  few  said,  "Very  good, 
sir."  And  one  or  two  had  complaints.  The 
General  listened  to  the  complaints  attentively 
and  in  each  case  pressed  his  questions  so  as  to 
make  the  soldier  be  absolutely  concrete  in  his 
answers.  Next  he  turned  upon  an  officer  and 
wanted  to  know  just  what  the  sewage  system 
of  the  town  was.  The  officer  was  a  dashing 
major  and  he  seemed  ill  at  ease  when  Pershing 

94 


PERSHING 

asked  how  many  days  a  week  he  inspected  the 
garbage  dump. 

"That  isn't  enough,"  said  the  General  when 
the  major  answered,  "I  want  you  to  pay 
more  attention  to  those  things." 

From  the  kitchen  he  went  into  every  billet 
in  the  village.  In  two  he  climbed  up  the  lad- 
ders to  see  what  sort  of  sleeping  quarters  the 
men  had  in  their  lofts.  In  one  billet  a  soldier 
stole  a  look  over  his  shoulder  at  the  General 
as  he  passed.     Pershing  turned  immediately. 

"That's  not  the  way  to  be  a  soldier,"  he  said. 
"You  haven't  learned  the  first  principle  of  be- 
ing a  soldier."  He  turned  to  a  second  lieu- 
tenant. "This  man  doesn't  stand  at  attention 
properly,"  he  explained.  "I  want  you  to 
make  him  stand  at  attention  for  five  minutes." 

The  next  offender  was  a  captain  who  hadi 
one  hand  in  his  pocket  while  giving  an  order. 
The  General  spoke  to  him  just  as  severely  as 
he  had  to  the  enlisted  man.  Then  iie  was  into 
his  car  and  away  to  the  next  village. 

Pershing  is  always  on  the  move.  One  of 
his  aides  told  me  that  he  never  had  more  than 
five  minutes'  notice  of  where  the  General  was 

95 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

going  or  how  long  he  would  stay.  No  man  in 
the  army  has  covered  so  much  territory  as 
Pershing.  He  has  been  in  practically  every 
village  occupied  by  the  American  troops.  He 
has  inspected  every  hospital  and  every  train- 
ing camp.  One  day  he  will  be  at  a  port  look- 
ing at  the  accommodations  which  are  being 
made  for  incoming  vessels  and  on  the  next  he 
will  have  jumped  from  the  base  to  a  front  line 
trench.  He  has  been  on  all  the  Western 
fronts  except  the  Italian.  His  French  and 
British  and  Belgian  hosts  find  him  a  most  am- 
bitious guest.  He  wants  to  see  everything. 
Once  while  observing  a  French  offensive  he  ex- 
pressed a  desire  to  go  forward  and  see  a  line 
of  trenches  which  had  just  been  captured  from 
the  Germans.  The  French  tried  to  dissuade 
him  but  the  General  complained  that  he  could 
not  see  just  how  things  were  going  from  any 
other  position  and  so  into  the  German  trench 
he  went. 

Pershing  has  developed  in  France.  Like 
every  other  man  in  the  American  army  he  has 
had  to  study  modern  warfare,  but  more  than 
that  he  has  caught  something  of  the  spirit  of 

96 


PERSHING 

the  French.  He  has  acquired  some  of  their 
abihty  to  put  a  gesture  into  command,  to  util- 
ize personality  in  the  inspiration  of  troops. 
He  is  not  yet  the  equal  of  the  French  in  this 
respect.  JofFre,  for  instance,  fully  realized 
the  military  usefulness  of  his  enormous  popu- 
larity and  capitalized  it.  It  was  not  mere 
luck  that  he  became  a  tradition.  Petain, 
while  by  no  means  the  equal  of  Joffre  on  the 
personal  side,  knows  how  to  talk  to  soldiers 
and  to  townsfolk  and  to  make  himself  a  big 
human  force. 

While  he  is  still  a  homeopath.  General 
Pershing  realizes  more  than  he  ever  did  before 
the  value  of  a  pat  on  the  back  given  at  the 
right  time.  I  saw  him  do  one  of  those  little 
gracious  things  in  a  base  hospital  which  was 
caring  for  the  first  American  wounded.  A 
youthful  doughboy  was  lying  flat  on  his  back 
wondering  just  how  long  it  was  going  to  be 
before  supper  time  came  round  when  all  of  a 
sudden  there  was  a  clatter  at  the  door.  The 
doughboy  v/as  afraid  it  was  going  to  be  some 
more  nurses  and  doctors.  They  had  bothered 
him  a  lot  by  bandaging  up  his  arm  every  little 

97 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

while  and  it  hurt,  but  when  he  looked  up  at 
the  foot  of  his  bed  there  stood  the  man  with 
four  stars  on  his  shoulders.  The  little  dough- 
boy grinned  a  bit  nervously.  He  thought  it 
was  funny  that  he  should  be  lying  on  his  back 
and  General  Pershing  standing  up. 

The  General  was  somewhat  nervous  and  em- 
barrassed, too.  He  still  lacks  a  little  of  the 
French  feeling  for  the  dramatic  in  the  doing 
of  these  little  things.  He  had  to  clear  his 
throat  once  and  then  he  said,  "I  want  to  con- 
gratulate you.  I  envy  you.  There  isn't  a 
man  in  the  army  who  wouldn't  like  to  be  in 
your  place.  You  have  brought  home  to  the 
jjeople  of  America  the  fact  that  we  are  in  the 
war." 

The  doughboy  didn't  say  anything,  but  the 
nurse  who  made  the  rounds  that  evening  won- 
dered why  a  patient  who  was  doing  so  well 
should  have  a  pulse  hitting  up  to  ninety-six. 

Earlier  in  the  summer  General  Pershing  en- 
countered some  far  more  embarrassing  tests. 
He  had  to  handle  bouquets.  The  donor  was 
usually  a  French  girl  and  a  very  little  one. 
When  Pershing  and  Petain  made  a  joint  trip 

98 


PERSHING 

through  the  American  army  zone  there  were 
two  little  girls  and  two  bouquets  in  each  vil- 
lage. General  Petain,  after  receiving  his  bou- 
quet, would  bend  over  gracefully  and  kiss  the 
little  girl,  adding  one  or  two  kindly  phrases 
immediately  following  "ma  petite."  General 
Pershing  began  by  patting  the  little  girls  on 
the  head,  but  he  realized  it  was  not  enough  and 
after  a  bit  he  began  to  kiss  them,  too;  only 
once  or  twice  he  got  tangled  up  in  their  hats 
and  found  it  hard  to  maintain  military  dig- 
nity. He  handled  the  flowers  gingerly.  He 
seemed  to  regard  each  bouquet  as  a  bomb 
which  would  explode  in  five  seconds  but  each 
time  there  was  some  aide  ready  to  step  for- 
ward and  relieve  him. 

The  attitude  of  the  average  West  Pointer 
towards  his  men  is  generally  speaking  the  same 
as  that  of  General  Pershing.  Some  observ- 
ers think  the  West  Point  attitude  too  strict, 
but  I  was  inclined  to  believe  that  the  men 
from  the  academy  handled  men  better  than 
the  reserve  officers.  They  are  strict,  it  is  true, 
but  at  the  same  time  they  have  been  trained 
to  look  after  the  needs  of  their  men  closely. 

99 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

The  trouble  with  the  average  reserve  officer  is 
that  he  has  not  had  time  to  learn  how  much  he 
must  father  his  men  and  mother  them,  too, 
for  that  matter.  He  does  not  know  probably 
just  how  dependent  the  average  soldier  is 
upon  his  officer. 

Perhaps  the  strictest  officer  of  all  is  the  man 
who  was  once  a  non-com.  The  former  dough- 
boy knows  the  tricks  of  the  enlisted  man  and 
he  is  determined  that  nobody  shall  put  any- 
thing over  on  him.  He  is  often  just  a  little 
bit  afraid  that  the  soldiers  are  going  to  trade 
on  the  fact  that  he  was  once  an  enlisted  man. 
I  once  saw  a  soldier  offer  some  cigars  to  two 
officers.  One  of  the  officers  was  a  West 
Pointer  and  he  laughed  and  took  a  cigar  but 
the  former  non-com.  refused  very  sternly.  He 
could  not  afford  to  be  indebted  to  an  enlisted 
man. 

I  do  not  wish  to  imply  that  the  men  who 
come  up  from  the  ranks  do  not  make  good  of- 
ficers. As  a  matter  of  fact  they  are  among 
the  best,  once  their  preliminary  self-conscious- 
ness has  worn  off.  The  transition  from 
stripes  to  bars  is  perfect  torture  to  some  of 

100 


PERSHING 

them.  One  company  had  a  crack  soldier  who 
had  been  a  sergeant  for  seven  years.  He  was 
recommended  for  promotion  and  was  sent  to 
an  officers'  training  school  in  France.  He  did 
very  well  but  just  a  week  before  he  was  to  re- 
ceive his  commission  he  succeeded  in  gaining 
permission  to  be  dropped  from  the  school  and 
go  back  to  his  old  company  as  sergeant.  At 
the  last  minute  he  had  decided  that  he  did  not 
want  to  be  an  officer. 

I  watched  him  put  a  company  through  its 
drill  two  days  after  his  return.  They  moved 
with  spirit  and  precision  under  his  commands 
but  when  it  was  all  over  I  found  one  reason 
why  he  didn't  want  to  be  an  officer. 

"That  was  very  good  today,"  he  said.  "You 
done  well." 

The  first  lieutenant  smiled.  He  had  a 
right  to  smile,  too,  for  the  return  of  the  ser- 
geant to  his  company  had  almost  cut  his  work 
in  half.     He  knew  his  value  well  enough. 

"The  best  I  can  do  is  teach  the  men,"  he 
said.  "It  takes  an  old  sergeant  to  learn 
them." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

MEN  WITH  MEDALS 

General  Petain  was  the  first  of  many  fa- 
mous Frenchmen  who  came  to  see  the  Amer- 
ican troops  in  training.  He  also  had  the  ad- 
ditional object  of  reviewing  the  chasseurs  and 
of  distributing  medals,  for  this  crack  division 
had  been  withdrawn  from  one  of  the  most  ac- 
tive sectors  to  instruct  the  doughboys.  Gen- 
eral Pershing  accompanied  Petain.  The  blue 
devils  were  drawn  up  in  formation  in  the  mid- 
dle of  a  big  meadow  cupped  within  hills.  The 
seven  men  who  were  to  be  honored  stood  in  a 
line  in  front  of  the  division.  Six  were  officers 
and  they  awaited  the  pleasure  of  the  general 
with  their  swords  held  at  attention.  The  sev- 
enth man  who  stood  at  the  right  of  the  little 
line  was  an  old  sergeant  with  a  great  flowing 
gray  and  white  mustache.  The  rifle  which  he 
held  in  front  of  him  overtopped  him  by  at  least 
a  foot. 

102 


MEN  WITH  MEDALS 

The  ceremony  began  with  a  fanfare  by  the 
trumpeters.  As  the  last  notes  came  tumbling 
back  from  the  hills  Petain  moved  forward. 
We  found  that  he  was  not  so  tall  as  Pershing 
nor  quite  as  straight.  The  French  leader  is 
also  a  little  gray  and  about  his  waist  there  is 
just  a  suggestion  of  the  white  man's  burden. 
But  he  is  soldierly  for  all  that  and  his  eyes  are 
marvelously  keen  and  steady.  His  tailor  de- 
served a  decoration.  The  general  wore  only 
i)ne  medal,  but  that  was  as  large  as  the  badge 
of  a  country  sheriff.  It  was  a  great  silver 
shield  hung  about  his  neck  and  indicated  that 
he  was  a  commander  of  the  Legion  of  Honor. 
He  stopped  in  front  of  the  first  officer  in  the 
little  line  waiting  to  be  honored  and  spoke  to 
him  for  a  moment.  Then  he  pinned  a  red  rib- 
bon on  his  coat  and  kissed  the  man  first  on 
the  left  cheek  and  then  on  the  right.  The 
doughboys  looked  on  in  amazement. 

"Well,  I'll  be  damned,"  said  one  under  his 
breath,  "it's  true." 

Four  men  received  the  red  ribbons,  but  the 
other  three  were  down  only  for  the  military 
medal  which  is  a  high  decoration  but  less  es- 

103 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

teemed  than  the  Legion  of  Honor.  No  kisses 
went  with  the  green  and  yellow  ribbons  of  the 
military  medal  but  only  handshakes.  Petain 
stopped  in  front  of  the  old  sergeant  at  the  end 
of  the  line  and  looked  at  him  for  a  minute 
without  speaking.     Then  he  called  an  orderly. 

"This  man  has  three  palms  on  his  croix  de 
guerre,"  said  Petain. 

Now  a  palm  means  that  soldier  has  been 
cited  for  conspicuous  bravery  in  the  report  of 
the  entire  army. 

"The  military  medal  is  not  enough  for  this 
man,"  continued  Petain.  "Step  forward,"  he 
said. 

The  old  sergeant  trembled  a  little  as  he 
stood  a  tiny,  solitary  gray  figure  in  front  of 
the  whole  division. 

"Bring  back  the  trumpets,"  Petain  com- 
manded and  for  the  lone  poilu  the  fanfare  was 
sounded  again. 

"I  make  you  a  chevalier  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor,"  said  the  commander  in  chief  of  the 
French  army  to  the  old  sergeant,  and  after  he 
had  pinned  the  red  ribbon  to  his  breast  he 
added  a  hug  to  the  conventional  two  kisses. 

104 


MEN  WITH  MEDALS 

The  poilu  moved  back  to  the  ranks  steadily, 
but  as  soon  as  the  general  had  turned  his  back 
the  sergeant  pulled  out  his  handkerchief  and 
wept.  The  soldiers  greeted  their  comrade 
with  cheers  and  laughter. 

"Now,"  said  Petain  turning  to  Pershing, 
"let's  take  it  easy  for  a  little  while.  I've  seen 
plenty  of  reviews." 

The  French  general  walked  across  the  space 
cleared  for  the  review  and  began  to  talk  with 
people  in  the  fringe  of  spectators  gathered 
around  the  edge  of  the  meadow.  He  talked 
easily  without  any  seeming  condescension. 

"How  are  you,  my  little  man?"  he  said,  pat- 
ting a  boy  on  the  head.  "In  what  military 
class  are  you?" 

Encouraged  by  his  father  the  boy  said  that 
he  was  in  the  class  of  1928. 

"Oh,"  said  the  general,  "that's  a  long  time 
off.  We  shall  have  beaten  the  Boches  before 
then." 

Next  it  was  a  peasant  girl  who  attracted  his 
attention. 

"Where  have  you  come  from?"  he  inquired 
with  as  much  apparent  interest  as  if  he  were 

105 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

talking  with  a  soldier  just  back  from  Berlin. 
"That  was  a  long  walk  just  to  see  soldiers," 
he  said  when  the  girl  told  him  that  she  lived  in 
a  little  village  about  ten  miles  distant.  "But 
we  are  glad  to  have  you  here,"  he  added. 

And  so  he  moved  on  down  the  line  with 
handshakes  for  the  grownups,  pats  on  the  head 
for  little  boys  and  kisses  for  little  girls.  He 
turned  back  to  his  reviewing  station  then  and 
the  French  troops  swept  by  with  brave  dis- 
play. They  were  very  smart  and  brisk,  horse, 
foot  and  artillery,  but  Petain  found  a  few 
things  to  criticize  although  he  mingled  praise 
generously  with  censure.  He  told  the  officers 
to  know  their  men  and  to  get  on  such  terms 
with  them  that  the  soldiers  would  not  be 
afraid  to  speak  freely.  He  told  of  reforms 
which  he  planned  to  introduce  in  the  French 
army.  He  favored  longer  leaves  from  the 
front,  he  said,  and  better  transportation  for 
the  poilus. 

"I  shall  have  time  tables  made  for  the  men 
on  leave,"  he  said  and  then  for  an  instant  he 
became  the  shrewd  French  business  man. 
rather  than  the  dashing  general. 

106 


MEN  WITH  MEDALS 

"I  have  figured  out,"  he  explained,  "that  the 
army  can  afford  to  sell  these  time  tables  for 
five  sous.  It  wouldn't  do  to  give  them  away. 
Nobody  would  value  them  then." 

A  week  later  we  had  another  visitor. 
French  generals  and  all  their  resplendent  aides 
clicked  their  heels  together  and  stood  at  atten- 
tion as  this  civilian  passed  by.  He  was  a 
short  stoutish  man  in  blue  serge  knickerbock- 
ers and  a  dark  yachting  cap.  His  tailor  de- 
served no  decoration  for  this  seemed  a  second- 
ary sort  of  costume  and  headgear  in  a  group 
loaded  down  with  gold  braid  and  valor  med- 
als. But  their  swords  flashed  for  the  man  in 
the  yachting  cap  and  a  great  general  saw  him 
into  his  car,  for  the  stoutish  visitor  was  the 
President  of  the  French  Republic.  Generals 
Petain  and  Pershing  accompanied  Poincare  in 
his  car  up  to  the  drill  ground.  It  was  an 
American  division  which  marched  this  morn- 
ing. In  fact  it  was  the  same  unit  which  had 
marched  through  the  streets  of  the  port  only  a 
few  months  before.  They  had  grown  browner 
and  straighter  since  that  day  and  they  looked 
taller.     Group  consciousness  had  dawned  in 

107 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

them  now.  The  only  lack  of  discipline  was 
shown  by  the  mules.  It  must  be  admitted  that 
the  mule  morale  left  much  to  be  desired. 
Many  were  new  to  the  task  of  dragging  ma- 
chine guns  and  those  that  did  not  sulk  tried  to 
run  away.  Strong  arms  and  stronger  words 
prevailed  upon  them. 

"Remember,"  the  driver  would  plead,  "you 
have  a  part  in  making  the  world  safe  for  de- 
mocracy," and  in  a  trice  all  the  evil  would  flee 
from  the  eyes  and  the  heels  of  the  unruly  ani- 
mals. 

A  number  of  band^  helped  to  keep  the  men 
swinging  into  the  face  of  a  driving  rain.  The 
French  officers  who  accompanied  Petain  and 
Poincare  were  somewhat  surprised  when  one 
regiment  went  by  to  the  tune  of  "Tannen- 
baum,"  but  General  Pershing  explained  that 
it  had  been  played  in  America  for  years  un- 
der the  name  of  "Maryland,  My  Maryland." 
He  had  a  harder  task  some  minutes  later  when 
a  band  struck  up  a  regimental  hymn  called 
"Happy  Heinie,"  which  borrows  largely  from 
•^Die  Wacht  am  Khein"  for  its  chorus. 

As  soon  as  the  troops  marched  by,  General 
108 


MEN  WITH  MEDALS 

Pershing  sent  orders  for  all  the  officers  to  as- 
semble. They  gathered  in  a  great  half  cir- 
cle before  the  French  President  who  spoke  to 
them  slowly  and  with  much  earnestness.  In- 
deed, he  spoke  so  slowly  that  fair  scholars 
could  follow  his  discourse.  Even  those  who 
could  grasp  no  more  than  such  words  as  "La- 
fayette" and  "President  Wilson"  and  "la 
guerre"  listened  with  apparent  interest.  M. 
Poincare  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  the 
day  was  the  anniversary  of  the  Battle  of  the 
JMarne  and  also  the  birthday  of  Lafayette. 
These  days,  he  said,  linked  together  the  two 
nations  which  were  making  a  common  cause  in 
the  struggle  for  civilization  and  he  ended  with 
a  dramatic  sweep  of  his  arm  as  he  exclaimed, 
"Long  live  the  free  United  States."  How- 
ever, he  called  it  Les  Etats  Unis  which  made 
it  more  difficult. 

"What  did  he  say?"  a  group  of  doughboys 
asked  a  sergeant  chauffeur  who  had  been  sta- 
tioned near  enough  to  hear  the  speech.  "I 
didn't  get  it  all,"  said  the  sergeant,  "but  it 
sounded  a  good  deal  like  'give  'em  hell.'  " 

The  President  and  his  party  spent  the  rest 
109 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

of  the  afternoon  inspecting  the  billets  of  the 
Americans.  In  one  barn  Poincare  insisted  on 
climbing  up  a  ladder  to  see  the  quarters  at 
close  range  and  as  he  climbed  slowly  and  clum- 
sily it  came  to  my  mind  that  the  presidential 
waist  line,  the  knickerbockers  and  the  yacht- 
ing cap  were  all  symbols  of  the  fact  that 
France  even  in  war  was  still  a  civil  democracy. 
Still  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  next  civil- 
ian we  saw  was  more  warlike  than  any  of  the 
soldiers.  The  only  military  equipment  worn 
by  Georges  Clemenceau  was  a  pair  of  leather 
puttees  which  didn't  quite  fit,  but  he  had  eyes 
and  eyebrows  and  a  jaw  which  all  combined  to 
suggest  pugnacity.  He  was  not  then  pre- 
mier and  indeed  he  had  been  in  political  re- 
tirement for  some  time,  but  he  made  a  greater 
impression  on  the  soldiers  than  any  of  our  vis- 
itors because  he  spoke  in  English.  It  was  on 
September  16,  1917,  that  Clemenceau  saw 
American  soldiers,  but  he  had  seen  them  once 
before  and  that  was  in  Richmond  in  1864  when 
Grant  marched  into  the  city.  Clemenceau 
was  then  a  school  teacher  in  America.  The 
old  Frenchman  watched  the  sons  and  grand- 

110 


MEN  WITH  MEDALS 

sons  of  those  dead  and  gone  fighters  and  ex- 
pressed the  wish  that  he  might  see  American 
troops  once  again  when  they  marched  into  Ber- 
hn. 

The  doughboys  he  saw  in  France  were  not 
the  seasoned  troops  which  swung  by  him  on 
those  dusty  Virginia  roads  so  many  years  ago, 
but  in  their  hands  were  new  weapons  which 
might  have  turned  the  tide  at  Bull  Run  and 
changed  Gettysburg  from  victory  into  a  rout. 
Certainly  Pickett  would  have  never  swept  up 
to  the  Union  lines  if  there  had  been  machine 
guns  such  as  those  with  which  the  rookies  blis- 
tered the  targets  for  the  edification  of  the  dis- 
tinguished guests  and  the  bombs  which  sent 
the  pebbles  sky  high  might  have  given  pause 
even  to  Stonewall  Jackson. 

There  were  sports  as  well  as  military  exer- 
cises in  the  program  arranged  for  Clemen- 
ceau.  There  were  footraces  and  a  tug  of  war 
and  boxing  matches.  In  one  of  these  Amer- 
ican blood  was  freely  shed  on  French  soil  for 
a  middleweight  against  whom  the  tide  of  bat- 
tle was  turning  butted  his  opponent  and  cut 
his  forehead. 

Ill 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

I  did  not  see  JofFre  when  he  paid  a  visit  to 
the  army  zone  and  reviewed  the  troops  but  he 
left  a  glamor  for  us  all  in  our  messroom  where 
he  had  dinner  with  General  Pershing,  It  was 
a  reporterless  dinner  so  it  meant  less  to  us 
than  to  Henriette  who  served  the  dinner  for 
the  two  generals.  Nothing  much  had  ever 
happened  to  Henriette  before.  She  looked 
like  Jeanne  d'Arc,  but  the  only  voices  she  ever 
heard  cried,  "L'eau  chaude,  Henriette,"  or 
"Hot  water"  or  "CEufs"  or  "Eggs."  And  if 
they  were  not  wanted  right  away  they  must 
be  had  "toute  de  suite." 

It  was  Henriette  who  brushed  the  boots  and 
cleaned  the  dishes  and  swept  the  floors  and 
every  night  she  waited  on  peasants  and  ped- 
dlers and  reporters.  Once  she  had  a  major 
in  the  reserve  corps.  He  was  attached  to  the 
quartermaster's  department.  But  on  the  his- 
toric night  she  stood  at  the  right  elbow  of 
General  Joff re  and  the  left  elbow  of  General 
Pershing.  I  was  away  at  the  time  and  the 
correspondents  were  telling  me  about  it  before 
dinner.  While  we  were  talking  she  came  into 
the  room  with  the  roast  veal  and  I  said,  "Hen- 

112 


MEN  WITH  MEDALS 

riette,  they  tell  me  that  while  I  was  away  you 
waited  upon  Marshal  Joffre  and  General 
Pershing." 

One  of  the  men  at  the  table  made  a  warning 
gesture,  but  it  was  too  late.  Henriette  put 
the  hot  veal  down  to  cool  on  a  side  table  and 
pointed  to  the  seat  nearest  the  window.  A 
large  man  from  a  press  association  sat  there 
but  she  looked  through  him  and  saw  the  hero 
of  the  Marne.  "Marechal  Joffre  la,"  said 
Henriette.  She  turned  to  a  nearer  seat  and 
pointing  to  the  shrinking  representative  of  the 
Chicago  Tribune  explained,  "General  Pearsh- 
ing  ici." 

One  of  the  men  rose  from  the  table  then  and 
got  the  veal.  Something  was  said  about  fried 
potatoes,  but  Henriette  remained  to  tell  me 
about  the  historic  dinner.  She  admitted  that 
she  was  very  nervous  at  first.  That  was  in- 
creased by  the  fact  that  General  "Pearshing" 
ate  none  of  his  pickled  snails.  The  Marechal 
had  fifteen.  The  soup  went  well,  Henriette 
said,  and  General  Pearshing  cheered  her  up 
enormously  by  his  conduct  with,  the  mutton. 
The  chicken  was  also  a  success.     After  the 

113 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

chicken  the  generals  held  their  glasses  in  the 
air  and  stood  up.  Henriette  noticed  that 
when  Marechal  Joffre  stood  up  he  was  "gros 
comme  une  maison." 

As  he  left  the  room  Marechal  Joffre  pinched 
her  cheek  but  the  mark  was  gone  before  she 
could  show  it  to  the  cook.  For  all  that  Hen- 
riette had  something  to  show  that  she  waited 
upon  generals  at  the  famous  dinner.  She 
opened  a  new  locket  which  she  wore  around 
her  neck  and  took  out  a  small  piece  of  gilt 
paper.  She  would  not  let  me  touch  it,  but 
when  I  looked  closely  I  saw  that  it  had  printed 
upon  it  "Romeo  and  Juliet." 

"It's  the  band  off  the  cigar  Pershing 
smoked  at  the  dinner,"  explained  one  of  the 
correspondents.  Henriette  put  the  treasure 
back  in  her  locket  and  sighed.  "Je  suis  tres 
contente,"  she  said. 


CHAPTER  IX 

LETTERS  HOME 

The  British  army  tells  a  story  of  a  soldier 
who  had  been  at  the  front  for  a  year  and  a  half 
without  ever  once  writing  home.  This  state 
of  affairs  was  called  to  the  attention  of  his 
officer  who  smnmoned  the  soldier  and  asked 
him  if  he  had  no  relatives.  The  Tommy  ad- 
mitted that  he  had  a  mother  and  an  aunt. 

"I  want  you  to  go  back  to  quarters,"  said 
the  captain,  "and  stay  there  until  you've  writ- 
ten a  letter.     Then  bring  it  to  me." 

The  soldier  was  gone  for  two  hours  and 
then  he  returned  and  handed  the  officer  a  sin- 
gle sheet  of  letter  paper.  His  note  read, 
"Dear  Ma — This  war  is  a  blighter.  Tell 
auntie.     With  love — Alfred." 

It  was  different  in  the  American  army. 
The  doughboys  wrote  to  their  families  to  the 
second  and  third  cousin.  One  soldier  turned 
fifty-two  letters  over  to  his  lieutenant  for  cen- 

115 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

sorship  in  a  single  day.  The  men  hardly- 
seemed  to  need  the  suggestion  posted  on  the 
wall  of  every  Y.  M.  C.  A.  hut:  "Remember 
to  write  to  mother  today."  Of  course  it  was 
not  always  mother.  I  came  upon  a  couple  of 
lieutenants  one  afternoon  hard  at  work  on  an 
enormous  batch  of  letters.  It  was  originally 
intended  that  the  chaplain  should  censor  all 
the  mail  for  the  regiment  but  it  was  found  that 
the  task  would  be  far  beyond  the  powers  of 
any  one  man.  In  time  the  job  came  to  ab- 
sorb a  large  part  of  the  energy  of  the  junior 
officers. 

"This,"  said  one  of  the  officers,  "is  the  fifth 
soldier  who's  written  that  'our  officers  are 
brave,  intelligent  and  kind!'  I  know  I'm  brave 
and  intelligent,  but  I'm  not  so  damned  kind," 
and  he  ripped  out  half  a  page  of  over  faithful 
description  of  the  country. 

"The  man  I  have  here,"  said  the  second  of- 
ficer, "has  got  a  joke.  Tie  says,  'If  I  ever 
get  home  the  Statue  of  Liberty  will  have  to 
turn  round  if  she  ever  wants  to  see  me  again.' 
It  was  all  right  the  first  time,  but  now  I've  got 
to  his  tenth  letter  and  he's  still  using  it." 

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It  has  been  found  that  more  than  fifty  per 
cent,  of  the  mail  sent  home  consists  of  love  let- 
ters. The  fact  that  they  have  to  be  censored 
does  not  cramp  the  style  of  the  writers  in  the 
least.  One  letter  was  so  ardent  as  to  arouse 
admiration.  "This  man  writes  the  best  love 
letter  I  ever  read,"  said  a  lieutenant,  looking 
up.  "The  only  trouble  is  that  he's  writing  to 
five  girls  at  once  and  he  uses  the  same  model 
every  time.  Two  of  the  girls  live  in  the  same 
town  at  that." 

Most  of  the  letters  were  cheerful.  Some 
courageously  so.  One  man  who  was  near 
death  from  tuberculosis  wrote  home  once  a  day 
recounting  imaginary  events  which  had  hap- 
pened outside  the  walls  of  his  hospital.  In 
his  letters  he  would  send  himself  on  long 
marches  over  the  hills  of  France  and  describe 
the  woods  and  meadows  and  plowed  fields  as 
they  looked  to  him  on  bright  mornings.  He 
described  in  detail  work  which  he  was  doing 
in  bombing  and  the  only  complaint  he  ever 
made  was  on  a  day  when  he  had  coughed  him- 
self to  such  weakness  that  he  could  hardly  fin- 
ish his  daily  letter.     He  wrote  to  his  mother 

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THE  A.  E.  F. 

then  and  asked  her  to  excuse  the  briefness  of 
his  note.  He  explained  that  he  was  pretty 
well  fagged  out  from  a  long  afternoon  of  bay- 
onet drill. 

The  soldiers  frequently  commented  on  the 
kindliness  of  the  French  people  and  they  were 
also  fond  of  boasting,  with  perhaps  doubtful 
justification,  that  they  were  already  proficient 
in  the  French  language.  A  few  were  desir- 
ous of  giving  the  folk  back  home  a  thrill.  One 
man  working  as  company  cook  at  a  port  in 
France,  some  three  or  four  hundred  miles 
from  the  firing  line,  wrote  a  weekly  letter  de- 
scribing all  sorts  of  war  activities.  He  made 
up  air  raids  and  heavy  bombardments  and 
fairly  tore  up  the  village  in  which  he  was  liv- 
ing. Curiously  enough  he  never  made  him- 
self conspicuous  in  these  actions.  According 
to  the  letters  he  was  just  there  with  the  rest 
taking  the  "strafing"  as  best  he  could. 

The  officer  who  censored  his  first  warlike 
letter  cut  out  all  the  imaginative  flights,  but 
two  days  later  the  soldier  wrote  another  letter 
even  more  thrilling.     He  complained  that  it 

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LETTERS  HOME 

was  difficult  to  write  because  the  explosion  of 
big  shells  nearby  made  the  house  rock. 

The  lieutenant  called  him  up  then  and  said, 
"You're  writing  a  lot  of  lies  home,  aren't 
you?" 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  the  soldier. 

"Well,  what  are  you  doing  it  for?"  contin- 
ued the  officer. 

The  soldier  shifted  about  in  embarrassment 
and  then  lie  said,  "Well,  you  see,  sir,  those  let- 
ters are  to  my  father.  He  went  into  the  Un- 
ion army  when  he  was  sixteen  and  fought  all 
through  the  last  two  j^ears  of  the  war.  He 
lives  in  a  little  town  in  Ohio  and  the  people 
there  call  him  'Fighting  Bill'  on  account  of 
what  he  did  in  the  Civil  War.  Well,  when  I 
went  away  to  this  war  he  began  to  go  round 
town  and  tell  everybody  that  I  v/as  going  to 
do  fighting  that  would  make  'em  all  forget 
about  the  Civil  War.  He  used  to  say  that  I 
came  of  fighting  stock  and  that  I'd  make  'em 
sit  up  and  take  notice.  It  would  be  pretty 
tough  for  him,  sir,  if  I  had  to  write  home  and 
say  that  I  was  cooking  down  in  a  town  where 
you  can't  even  hear  the  guns." 

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THE  A.  E.  F. 

"That's  all  right,"  said  the  lieutenant,  "but 
some  of  the  people  who've  got  sons  in  this  regi- 
ment will  be  doing  a  lot  of  worrying  long  be- 
fore they  have  any  need  to." 

"No,  sir,"  said  the  soldier,  "my  father  don't 
know  what  regiment  I'm  with.  I  was  trans- 
ferred when  I  got  over  here  and  the  only  ad- 
dress he's  got  is  the  military  post  office  num- 
ber." 

"I  don't  know  what  to  say  in  that  case," 
replied  the  lieutenant.  "It's  a  cinch  you're 
not  giving  away  any  military  information  and 
I  can't  see  how  you're  giving  any  aid  and  com- 
fort to  the  enemy.  I  guess  you  can  go  on 
with  that  battle  stuff.  Make  the  bombard- 
ments just  as  hard  as  you  like,  but  keep  the 
casualties  light." 

In  contrast  to  the  attitude  of  the  veteran 
back  in  Ohio  was  a  letter  which  a  captain  re- 
ceived from  the  mother  of  one  of  his  men. 

"My  son  is  only  nineteen,"  she  wrote.  "He 
has  never  been  away  from  home  before  and  it 
breaks  my  heart  that  he  should  be  in  France. 
It  may  sound  foolish  but  I  want  to  ask  you  a 
favor.     When  he  was  a  little  boy  I  used  to 

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LETTERS  HOME 

let  him  come  into  the  kitchen  and  bake  him- 
self little  cakes.  I  think  he  would  remember 
some  of  that  still.  Can't  j^ou  use  him  in  the 
bakery  or  the  kitchen  or  some  place  so  he 
won't  have  to  be  put  in  the  firing  line  or  in  the 
trenches?  I  will  pray  for  you,  captain,  and 
I  pray  to  God  we  may  have  peace  for  all  the 
world  soon." 

The  captain  read  the  letter  and  then  he 
burned  it  up.  "If  the  rest  of  the  men  in  the 
company  heard  of  that  they  would  jolly  the 
life  out  of  that  boy,"  he  said.  But  he  sat 
down  and  wrote  to  the  mother,  "Your  boy  is 
well  and  I  think  he  is  enjoying  his  work.  I 
cannot  promise  to  do  what  you  ask  because 
your  son  is  one  of  the  best  soldiers  in  my  com- 
pany. We  are  all  in  this  together  and  must 
share  the  dangers.  I  pray  with  you  that  there 
may  be  peace  and  victorj?^  soon." 

No  complete  story  of  America's  part  in  the 
war  will  ever  be  written  until  somebody  has 
made  a  collection  and  read  thousands  of  the 
letters  home.  The  doughboy  is  strangely  in- 
articulate. He  can't  or  he  won't  tell  you  how 
he  felt  when  he  first  landed  in  France,  or  heard 

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THE  A.  E.  F. 

the  big  guns  or  went  to  the  trenches.  He  is 
afraid  to  be  caught  in  a  sentimental  pose  but 
this  fear  leaves  him  when  he  writes.  In  his 
letters  he  will  pose  at  times.  This  is  not  un- 
common. Many  a  man  who  would  never 
think  of  saying  anything  about  "saving 
France"  will  write  about  it  in  rounded  sen- 
tences. His  deepest  and  frankest  thoughts 
will  come  out  in  letters. 

Of  course  the  censors  stand  between  these 
makers  of  history  and  posterity.  We  must 
wait  for  our  chronicles  of  the  war  because  of 
the  censor.  The  newspaper  stories  about  our 
troops  in  France  on  their  tremendous  errand 
should  ring  like  the  chronicle  of  an  old  cru- 
sade, but  it  is  hard  for  the  chronicler  to  bring 
a  tingle  when  he  must  write  or  cable  "Rich- 
ard the  deleted  hearted." 

When  a  censor  wants  to  kill  a  story  he  usu- 
ally says,  "Don't  you  know  that  your  story 
may  possibly  give  information  to  the  Ger- 
mans?" The  correspondent  then  withdraws 
his  story  in  confusion.  Of  course  what  he 
should  answer  is,  "Very  well,  that  story  may 
give  information  to  the  Germans,  but  it  will 

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LETTERS  HOME 

also  give  information  to  the  Americans  and 
just  now  that  is  much  more  important." 

There  are  certain  military  reasons  for  not 
naming  units  and  not  naming  individuals,  but 
the  war  is  not  being  fought  by  the  army  alone. 
If  the  country  is  to  be  enlisted  to  its  fullest 
capacity  it  must  have  names.  The  national 
character  cannot  be  changed  in  a  few  months 
or  a  year.  The  newspapers  have  brought  us 
up  on  names.  It  is  too  much  to  expect  that 
the  folk  back  home  can  keep  up  on  their  toes 
if  the  men  they  know  go  away  into  a  great 
silence  as  soon  as  they  cross  the  ocean  and  are 
not  heard  of  again  unless  their  names  appear 
in  casualty  lists.  We  can't  do  less  for  our 
war  heroes  than  we  have  done  for  Ty  Cobb 
and  Christy  JNIathewson  and  Smokey  Joe 
Wood.  That  is  not  only  for  the  sake  of  the 
people  back  home,  but  for  those  at  the  front 
as  well.  They  like  to  know  that  people  are 
hearing  about  them.  It  is  not  encouraging  to 
them  to  receive  papers  and  learn  that  "certain 
units  have  done  something."  Just  as  soon  as 
possible  they  want  to  see  the  name  of  their 
regiment  and  of  D  company  and  K  and  F. 

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THE  A.  E.  F. 

and  H.  The  English  name  their  units  after 
a  battle  and  so  must  we.  And  we  must  have 
plenty  of  names.  It  helped  Ty  Cobb  not  a 
little  in  the  business  of  being  Ty  that  thou- 
sands of  columns  of  newspaper  space  had  built 
up  a  tradition  behind  him.  When  Joe  Wood 
got  in  a  hole  it  is  more  than  probable  that  he 
realized  that  he  must  and  would  get  himself 
out  again  because  he  was  "Smokey  Joe."  We 
must  do  as  much  for  private  Alexander  Brown 
and  corporal  James  Kelly,  and  for  sergeants 
and  major  generals,  too.  We  are  not  a  folk 
who  thrive  on  reticence.  It  is  true  that  we 
like  to  blow  our  own  horn  but  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  Joshua  brought  down  a  great 
fortress  in  that  manner.  The  trumpets  are 
needed  for  America.  We  cannot  fight  our 
best  to  the  sound  of  muffled  drums. 

The  man  abroad  who  is  sending  back  the 
stories  of  the  war  must  deal  with  the  French 
censor  as  well  as  the  American,  and  that  re- 
minds us  of  Petain's  mustache.  When  the 
great  general  came  to  our  camp  all  the  news- 
paper stories  about  his  visit  were  sent  to  the 
French  military  censor.     All  were  allowed  to 

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LETTERS  HOME 

pass  in  due  course  except  one.  The  cor- 
spondent  concerned  went  around  to  find  out 
what  was  wrong. 

"I'm  sorry,"  said  the  censor,  "but  I  cannot 
allow  this  cable  message  to  go  in  its  present 
form.  You  have  spoken  of  General  Petain's 
white  mustache.  I  might  stretch  a  point  and 
allow  you  to  say  General  Petain's  gray  mus- 
tache, but  I  should  much  prefer  to  have  you 
say  General  Petain's  blonde  mustache." 

"Make  it  green  with  small  purple  spots,  if 
you  like,"  said  the  correspondent,  "but  let  my 
story  go." 


CHAPTER  X 

MARINES 

"They  tell  me,"  said  a  young  marine  in  his 
best  confidential  and  earnest  manner,  "that 
the  Kaiser  isn't  afraid  of  the  American  army, 
but  that  he  is  afraid  of  the  marines." 

The  youngster  was  hazy  as  to  the  source  of 
his  information,  but  he  never  doubted  that  it 
was  accurate.  He  felt  sure  that  the  Kaiser 
had  heard  of  the  marines.  Weren't  they  "first 
to  fight"?  And  if  he  didn't  fear  them  yet,  he 
would.  At  least  he  would  when  Company  D 
got  into  action. 

No  unit  in  the  American  army  today  has 
the  group  consciousness  of  the  marines.  It  is 
difficult  to  understand  just  how  this  has  hap- 
pened. Everybody  knows  that  once  a  regi- 
ment, or  a  division,  or  even  an  army,  has  ac- 
quired a  tradition,  that  tradition  will  live  long 
after  every  man  who  established  it  has  gone. 

126 


MARINES 

There  is,  for  instance,  the  Foreign  Legion  of 
the  French  army.  Thousands  and  thousands 
of  men  have  poured  through  this  organization. 
Sickness  and  shrapnel,  the  exigencies  of  the 
service  and  what  not  have  swept  the  veterans 
away  again  and  again,  but  it  is  still  the  For- 
eign Legion.  Some  of  its  new  recruits  will  be 
negro  horseboys  who  have  missed  their  ships 
at  one  of  the  ports  through  overprotracted 
sprees;  there  will  be  a  gentleman  adventurer 
or  two,  and  a  fine  collection  of  assorted  ruf- 
fians. But  in  a  month  each  will  be  a  legion- 
ary. 

I  saw  an  American  negro  in  a  village  of 
France  who  had  been  a  legionary  until  a 
wound  had  stiffened  a  knee  too  much  to  per- 
mit him  to  engage  in  further  service.  He  was 
a  shambling,  shuffling,  whining,  servile  negro, 
abjectly  sure  that  some  kind  white  gentleman 
would  give  him  a  pair  of  shoes,  or  at  least  a 
couple  of  francs.  But  he  had  the  Croix  de 
Guerre  and  the  Medaille  Militaire.  He  had 
not  cringed  while  he  was  a  legionary. 

The  tradition  of  this  organization,  however, 
is  based  on  battle  service.     The  Legion  has 

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THE  A.  E.  F. 

seen  all  the  hardest  fighting.  The  tradition 
of  our  marines  rests  on  something  else.  They 
have  seen  service,  of  course,  but  it  has  not  been 
considerable.  Their  group  feeling  was  at  first 
sheerly  defensive.  There  was  a  time  when  the 
marine  was  a  friend  of  no  one  in  the  service. 
He  was  neither  soldier  nor  sailor.  Many  of 
the  marine  officers  were  men  who  had  been 
unable  to  get  appointments  at  West  Point  or 
Annapolis,  or,  having  done  so,  had  failed  to 
hold  the  pace  at  the  academies.  And  so  the 
spirit  of  the  officers  and  the  men  was  that  they 
would  show  the  army  and  the  navy  of  just 
what  stuff  a  marine  was  made.  And  they 
have.  It  is  true  that  the  army  and  the  navy 
have  ceased  long  since  to  look  down  upon  the 
marine,  but  the  pressure  of  handicap  has  been 
maintained  among  the  marines  in  France  just 
the  same. 

It  is  largely  accidental.  For  instance, 
when  the  American  troops  were  first  billeted 
in  the  training  area  the  marines  were  placed 
at  the  upper  end  of  the  triangle  miles  fur- 
ther from  the  field  of  divisional  maneuvers 
than    any    of    their    comrades.     And    so,    if 

128 


MARINES 

Joffre,  or  Petain,  or  Clemenceau,  or  Poin- 
care,  or  any  of  the  others  came  to  review  the 
first  American  expeditionary  unit,  the  marines 
had  to  march  twenty-two  miles  in  a  day  in  ad- 
dition to  the  ground  which  they  would  cover 
in  the  review.  Curiously  enough,  this  did  not 
inspire  them  with  a  hatred  of  the  reviews,  nor 
did  they  complain  of  their  lot.  They  merely 
took  the  attitude  that  a  few  miles  more  or  less 
made  no  difference  to  a  marine. 

I  remember  a  story  a  young  officer  told  me 
about  his  first  hike  with  the  marines  in  France. 
They  had  eleven  miles  to  do  in  the  morning 
and  as  many  more  in  the  afternoon,  after  a 
brief  review.  The  young  officer  appeared 
with  a  pair  of  light  shoes  with  a  flexible  sole. 

"Look  here,"  said  the  major,  "you'd  better 
put  on  heavier  shoes." 

"I  think  these  will  suffice,  sir,"  said  the 
young  lieutenant.  "You  see,  they're  modeled 
on  the  principle  of  an  Indian  moccasin — full 
freedom  for  the  foot,  you  know." 

The  major  grinned.  "Come  around  and 
see  me  this  evening,"  he  said,  "and  tell  me  what 
you  think  of  the  Indians."     The  man  with  the 

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THE  A.  E.  F. 

moccasin  style  shoe  did  well  enough  until  the 
company  was  in  sight  of  the  home  village. 
Unfortunately,  a  halt  was  called  at  a  point 
where  a  brook  ran  close  to  the  road. 

The  sight  of  the  cool  stream  made  the  lieu- 
tenant's feet  burn  and  ache  worse  than  ever. 
*'I  had  just  about  made  up  my  mind  to  turn 
my  men  over  to  the  sergeant  and  limp  home, 
after  a  crack  at  the  brook,"  said  the  lieuten- 
ant, "when  I  heard  one  of  the  men  say  that 
he  was  tired.  There  was  an  old  sergeant  on 
him  like  a  flash.  He  was  one  of  the  oldest 
men  in  the  regiment.  He  had  never  voted  the 
prohibition  ticket  and  rheumatism  was  only 
one  of  his  ailments,  but  he  hopped  right  on  the 
kid  who  said  he  was  tired.  'Where  do  you 
get  off  to  be  a  marine?'  he  said.  'Why,  we 
don't  call  a  hike  like  this  marching  in  the  ma- 
rines. Look  here.'  And  the  old  fellow  did 
a  series  of  jig  steps  to  show  that  the  march 
was  nothing  to  him. 

"Well,"  said  the  young  officer,  "I  didn't 
turn  the  men  over  to  the  sergeant  and  I  didn't 
bathe  my  feet  in  the  brook.  I  marched  in 
ahead  of  them.     You  see,  I  thought  to  myself, 

130 


MARINES 

I  guess  my  feet  will  drop  off  all  right  before 
I  get  there,  but  I  can't  very  well  stop.  After 
all,  I'm  a  marine." 

Even  the  Germans  did  their  best  to  make 
the  marines  feel  that  they  were  troops  apart 
from  the  others.  Only  one  raid  was  at- 
tempted during  the  summer  and  then  it  was 
the  village  of  the  marines  upon  which  a  bomb 
was  dropped.  It  injured  no  one  and  did  ever 
so  much  to  increase  the  pride  of  marines,  who 
would  remark  to  less  fortunate  organizations 
in  the  training  area:  "What  do  you  know 
about  aeroplanes?" 

When  it  came  time  to  dig  practice  trenches, 
other  regiments  were  content  to  put  in  the  bet- 
ter part  of  the  morning  and  afternoon  upon 
the  work,  but  the  marines  went  to  the  task  of 
digging  in  day  and  night  shifts.  There  was 
a  Sunday  upon  which  Pershing  announced 
that  he  would  inspect  the  American  troops  in 
their  billets.  Through  some  mistake  or  other 
he  arrived  in  the  camp  of  the  marines  eight 
hours  behind  schedule,  but  the  men  were  still 
standing  under  arms  without  a  sign  of  Mean- 
ness  when   he    arrived.     Historical   tradition 

131 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

lent  itself  to  maintaining  the  morale  of  the 
marines,  for  their  village  Avas  once  the  site  of 
a  famous  Roman  camp  and  one  of  the  men  in 
digging  a  trench  one  day  came  across  a  seg- 
ment of  green  metal  that  the  marines  assert 
roundly  was  part  of  a  Roman  sword.  In  a 
year  or  two  it  will  be  sure  to  be  identified  as 
Caesar's. 

The  marines  were  exclusive  and  original 
even  in  the  matter  of  mascots.  The  dough- 
boys had  dogs  and  cats  and  a  rather  mangy 
lion  for  pets  but  no  other  fighting  organization 
in  the  world  has  an  anteater.  The  marines 
picked  Jimmy  up  at  Vera  Cruz  and  he  began 
to  prove  his  worth  as  a  mascot  immediately. 
He  was  with  'them  when  the  city  was  taken. 
Later  he  stopped  off  at  Hayti  and  aided  in 
subduing  the  rebels.  He  is  said  to  be  the  only 
anteater  who  has  been  through  two  campaigns. 
Army  life  has  broadened  Jimmy.  He  has 
learned  to  eat  hardtack  and  frogs  and  corn- 
beef  and  pie  and  beetles  and  slum  and  ome- 
lettes. As  a  matter  of  fact  Jimmy  will  eat 
almost  anything  but  ants.  Of  course  he 
wouldn't  refuse  some  tempting  morsel  simply 

132 


MARINES 

because  of  the  presence  of  ants,  but  he  no 
longer  finds  any  satisfaction  in  making  an  en- 
tire meal  of  the  pesky  insects.  He  won't  for- 
age for  them.  Things  like  hardtack  and  pie, 
Jimmy  finds,  will  stand  still  and  give  a  hun- 
gry man  a  chance.  Lack  of  practice  has  some- 
what impaired  the  speed  of  Jimmy  and  even 
if  he  wanted  to  revert  to  type  it  is  probable 
that  he  could  catch  nothing  but  the  older  and 
less  edible  ants.  Of  course  he  does  not  want 
to  go  back  to  an  ant  diet.  He  feels  that  it 
would  be  a  reflection  on  the  hospitality  of  his 
friends  the  marines. 

The  marines  are  equally  tactful.  In  spite 
of  his  decline  as  an  entomologist  Jimmy  re- 
mains by  courtesy  an  anteater  and  is  always 
so  termed  when  exhibited  to  visitors.  He  has 
two  tricks.  He  will  squeal  if  his  tail  is  pulled 
ever  so  gently  and  he  will  demolish  and  put 
out  burning  cigars  or  cigarettes.  The  latter 
trick  is  his  favorite.  He  stamps  out  the  glow- 
ing tobacco  with  his  forepaws  and  tears  the 
cigar  or  cigarette  to  pieces.  The  stunt  is  no 
longer  universally  popular.  The  marine  who 
dropped  a  hundred  franc  note  by  mistake  just 

133 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

in  front  of  Jimmy  says  that  teaching  tricks 
to  anteaters  is  all  foolishness. 

However,  Jimmy  has  picked  up  a  few 
stunts  on  his  own  account.  It  is  not  thought 
probable  that  any  marine  ever  encouraged  him 
in  his  habit  of  biting  enlisted  men  of  the  regu- 
lar army  and  reserve  officers.  There  is  a  be- 
lief that  Jimmy  works  on  broad  general  prin- 
ciples, and  many  marines  fear  that  they  will 
no  longer  be  immune  from  his  teeth  if  the  dis- 
tinctive forest  green  of  their  organization  is 
abandoned  for  the  conventional  khaki  of  the 
rest  of  the  army. 

Some  little  time  before  the  American  troops 
first  went  into  the  trenches,  the  marines  were 
scattered  into  small  detachments  for  police 
duty.  Many  of  them  have  since  been  brought 
together  again.  There  is,  of  course,  a  good 
deal  of  stuff  and  nonsense  in  stories  about  sol- 
diers saying,  "We  want  to  get  a  crack  at 
them,"  and  all  that,  but  it  is  literally  and  ex- 
actly true  that  the  marines,  both  oflicers  and 
men,  were  deeply  disappointed  when  they 
could  not  go  to  the  front  with  the  others.  Their 
professional  pride  was  hurt. 

134 


MARINES 

Still  they  did  not  whine,  but  went  about 
their  traditional  police  work  with  vigor.  I 
was  in  a  base  hospital  one  day  when  a  dough- 
boy came  in  all  gory  about  the  head.  "What 
happened  to  you?"  a  doctor  asked.  "A  ma- 
rine told  me  to  button  up  my  overcoat,"  said 
the  doughboy,  "and  I  started  to  argue  with 
him." 

There  are  not  many  American  army  songs 
j^et,  but  the  marines  did  not  wait  until  the  war 
for  theirs.  Most  of  it  I  have  forgotten,  but 
one  of  the  stunning  couplets  of  the  chorus  is: 

If  the  army  or  the  navy  ever  gaze  on  heaven's 

scenes 
They  will  find  the  streets  are  guarded  by  United 

States  Marines. 


CHAPTER  XI 

FIELD  PIECES  AND  BIG  GUNS 

War  seemed  less  remote  in  the  artillery 
camp  than  in  any  other  section  of  the  Amer- 
ican training  area  for  the  roar  of  the  guns 
filled  the  air  every  morning  and  they  sounded 
just  as  ominous  as  if  they  were  in  earnest. 
They  were  firing  in  the  direction  of  Germany 
at  that,  but  it  was  a  good  many  score  of  miles 
out  of  range.  Just  the  same  the  French  were 
particular  about  the  point.  "We  always 
point  the  guns  toward  Germany  even  in  prac- 
tice if  we  can,"  said  a  French  instructing  offi- 
cer, "it's  just  as  well  to  start  right." 

The  camp  consisted  of  a  number  of  brick 
barracks  and  the  soldiers  and  officers  were  well 
housed.  It  was  located  in  wild  country, 
though,  where  it  was  possible  to  find  ranges  up 
to  twelve  thousand  yards.  Scrubby  woods 
covered  part  of  the  ranges  and  the  observation 

136 


FIELD  PIECES  AND  BIG  GUNS 

points  towered  up  a  good  deal  higher  than 
would  be  safe  at  the  front.  We  went  through 
the  woods  the  morning  after  our  arrival  and 
heard  a  perfect  bedlam  of  fire  from  the  guns. 
There  was  the  sharp  decisive  note  of  the  sev- 
enty-five which  speaks  quickly  and  in  anger 
and  the  more  deliberate  boom  of  the  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty-five  howitzer.  This  was  a 
colder  note  but  it  was  none  the  less  ominous. 
It  had  an  air  of  premeditated  wrath  about  it. 
The  shell  from  the  seventy-five  might  get  to 
its  destination  first  but  the  one  hundred  and 
fifty-five  would  create  more  havoc  upon  ar- 
rival. A  sentry  warned  us  to  take  the  left 
hand  road  at  a  fork  in  the  woods  and  presently 
we  came  upon  one  of  the  observation  towers. 
It  was  crammed  with  officers  armed  with  field 
glasses.  Every  now  and  then  they  w^ould 
write  things  on  paper.  They  seemed  like  so 
many  reporters  at  a  baseball  game  recording 
hits  and  errors.  When  we  got  to  the  top  of 
the  tower  we  found  that  large  maps  were  part 
of  the  equipment  as  well  as  field  glasses. 
These  were  wonderfully  accurate  maps  with 
every  prominent  tree  and  church   spire  and 

137 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

house  top  indicated.  The  officers  were  rang- 
ing from  the  maps.  The  French  theory  of  ar- 
tillery work  was  not  new  to  the  American  of- 
ficers, but  this  was  almost  the  first  chance  they 
had  ever  had  to  work  it  out  for  we  have  no 
maps  in  America  suitable  for  ranging. 

According  to  theory  the  battery  should  first 
fire  short  and  then  long  and  then  split  the 
bracket  'and  land  upon  the  target  or  there- 
abouts. The  men  had  not  been  working  long 
and  they  were  still  a  little  more  proficient  in 
firing  short  or  long  than  in  splitting  the 
bracket.  Later  the  American  artillery  gave 
a  very  good  account  of  itself  at  the  school. 
The  French  instructors  told  one  particular 
battery  that  they  were  able  to  fire  the  seventy- 
five  faster  than  it  had  ever  been  fired  in  France 
before.  Perhaps  there  was  just  a  shade  of  the 
over-statement  of  French  politeness  in  that, 
but  it  was  without  doubt  an  excellent  battery. 
In  the  lulls  between  fire  could  be  heard  the 
drone  of  aeroplanes  for  a  number  of  officers 
were  flying  to  learn  the  principles  of  aerial  ob- 
servation in  its  uses  for  fire  control.  Turning 
around  we  could  also  see  a  large  captive  bal- 

138 


FIELD  PIECES  AND  BIG  GUNS 

loon.  All  the  junior  officers  were  allowed  to 
express  a  preference  as  to  which  branch  of  ar- 
tillery work  they  preferred  and,  although  ob- 
serv^ation  is  the  most  dangerous  of  all,  fully 
seventy-five  per  cent,  of  the  men  indicated  it 
as  theu'  choice. 

Some  American  officers  in  other  sections  of 
the  training  area  came  to  the  conclusion  in 
time  that  we  should  go  to  the  English  for  in- 
struction in  some  of  the  phases  of  modern  war- 
fare. We  did  in  fact  turn  to  the  English 
finally  for  bayonet  instruction  and  a  certain 
number  of  officers  thought  that  the  English 
would  also  be  useful  to  us  in  bombing,  but  I 
never  heard  any  question  raised  but  that  we 
must  continue  to  go  to  the  French  for  instruc- 
tion in  field  artillery  until  such  time  as  we  had 
schools  of  our  own. 

The  difference  in  language  made  occasional 
difficulties  of  course.  "It  took  us  a  couple  of 
days  to  realize  that  when  our  instructor  spoke 
of  a  'rangerrang'  he  meant  a  'range  error,'  " 
said  one  American  officer,  "but  now  we  get  on 
famously." 

We  left  the  men  in  the  tower  with  their 
139 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

maps  and  their  glasses  and  went  down  to  see 
the  guns.  Our  guide  took  us  straight  in  front 
of  the  one  hundred  and  fifty-fives  while  they 
were  firing,  which  was  safe  enough  as  they 
were  tossing  their  shells  high  in  the  air.  It 
was  better  fun,  though,  to  stand  behind  these 
big  howitzers,  for  by  fixing  your  eye  on  a  point 
well  up  over  the  horizon  it  was  passible  to  see 
the  projectile  in  flight.  The  shell  did  not  seem 
to  be  moving  very  fast  once  it  was  located.  It 
looked  for  all  the  world  as  if  the  gunners  were 
batting  out  flies  and  this  was  the  baseball 
which  was  sailing  along. 

The  French  officer  who  was  showing  us 
about  said  that  he  could  see  the  projectile  as 
it  left  the  mouth  of  the  gun,  but  though  the 
rest  of  us  tried,  we  could  see  nothing  but  the 
flash.  Later  we  stood  behind  the  seventy-fives 
but  since  their  trajectory  is  so  much  lower  it 
is  not  possible  to  see  the  shell  which  they  fire. 
They  seemed  to  make  more  noise  than  the  big- 
ger guns.  Fortunately  it  is  no  longer  con- 
sidered bad  form  to  stick  your  fingers  in  your 
ears  when  a  gun  goes  off.  Most  of  the  officers 
and  men  in  this   particular  battery  were  as 

140 


FIELD  PIECES  AND  BIG  GUNS 

careful  to  shut  out  the  sound  of  the  cannon  as 
schoolgirls  at  a  Civil  War  play.  Not  only  did 
they  stuff  their  fingers  in  their  ears,  but  they 
stood  up  on  their  toes  to  lessen  the  vibration. 

Guns  have  changed,  however,  since  Civil 
War  days.  They  are  no  longer  drab.  Camou- 
flage has  attended  to  that.  The  guns  we  saw 
w^ere  streaked  with  red  and  blue  and  yellow 
and  orange.  They  were  giddy  enough  to  have 
stood  as  columns  in  the  Purple  Poodle  or  any 
of  the  Greenwich  Village  restaurants. 

Before  we  left  the  camp  we  met  Major  Gen- 
eral Peyton  C.  March,  the  new  chief  of  staff, 
who  was  then  an  artillery  officer.  We  agreed 
that  he  was  an  able  soldier  because  he  told  us 
that  he  did  not  believe  in  censorship.  Regard- 
ing one  slight  phase  of  the  training  he  bound 
us  to  secrecy,  but  for  the  rest  he  said:  "You 
ma}^  say  anything  you  like  about  mj^  camp, 
good  or  bad.  I  believe  that  free  and  full  re- 
ports in  the  American  newspapers  are  a  good 
thing  for  our  army." 

We  traveled  many  miles  from  the  field  gun 
school  before  we  came  to  the  camp  of  the 
heavies.    This,  too,  v/as  a  French  school  which 

141 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

had  been  partially  taken  over  by  the  Amer- 
icans. The  work  was  less  interesting  here,  for 
the  men  were  not  firing  the  guns  yet,  but 
studying  their  mechanism  and  going  through 
the  motions  of  putting  them  in  action.  Many 
of  the  officers  attached  to  the  heavies  were 
coast  artillerymen  and  there  was  a  liberal 
sprinkling  of  young  reserve  officers  who  had 
come  over  after  a  little  preliminary  training  at 
Fortress  Moni'oe.  The  General  in  charge  of 
the  camp  told  us  that  these  new  officers  would 
soon  be  as  good  as  the  best  because  the  most 
important  requirement  was  a  technical  educa- 
tion and  these  men  had  all  had  college  scien- 
tific training  or  its  equivalent.  Just  then  they 
were  all  at  school  again  cramming  with  all  the 
available  textbooks  about  French  big  guns. 
They  did  not  need  to  depend  on  textbooks 
alone,  for  the  camp  contained  types  of  most 
styles  of  French  artillery. 

The  pride  of  the  contingent  was  a  monster 
mounted  on  railroad  trucks.  It  fired  a  pro- 
jectile weighing  1800  pounds.  After  the 
French  custom,  the  big  howitzer  had  been  hon- 

142 


FIELD  PIECES  AND  BIG  GUNS 

ored  by  a  name.  "Mosquito"  was  painted  on 
the  carriage  in  huge  green  letters. 

*'We  call  her  mosquito,"  explained  a  French 
officer,  "because  she  stings." 

"Mosquito"  had  buzzed  no  less  than  three 
hundred  times  at  Verdun,  but  she  had  a  num- 
ber of  stings  left.  The  Americans  detailed 
with  the  gun  were  loud  in  its  praises  and  as- 
serted that  it  was  the  finest  weapon  in  the 
world.  There  were  other  guns,  though,  which 
had  their  partisans.  Some  swore  by  "Petite 
Lulu,"  a  squat  howitzer,  which  could  throw  a 
shell  high  enough  to  clear  Pike's  Peak  and  still 
have  something  to  spare.  There  were  cham- 
pions also  of  "Gaby,"  a  long  nosed  creature 
which  outranged  all  the  rest.  Marcel  could 
talk  a  little  faster  than  any  gun  in  camp,  but 
her  words  carried  less  weight. 

All  the  menial  work  about  the  camp  was 
done  by  German  prisoners.  I  was  walking 
through  the  camp  one  day  when  I  saw  a  little 
tow-headed  soldier  sitting  at  the  doorstep  of 
his  barracks  watching  a  file  of  Germans  shuf- 
fle by.    They  were  men  who  had  started  to  war 

143 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

with  guns  on  their  shoulders,  but  now  they  car- 
ried brooms. 

"Do  you  ever  speak  to  the  German  prison- 
ers?" I  asked  the  soldier. 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  the  youngster;  "some  of 
them  speak  English,  and  they  say  'Hello'  to 
me  and  I  say  'Hello'  back  to  them.  I  feel 
sorry  for  them." 

The  little  soldier  looked  at  the  shabby  pro- 
cession again  and  then  he  leaned  over  to  me 
confidentially  and  said  with  great  earnestness 
as  if  he  had  made  up  the  phrase  on  the  spot: 
"You  know  I  have  no  quarrel  with  the  Ger- 
man people." 

When  we  got  home  after  our  trips  to  the 
artillery  camps  we  found  an  old  man  in  a 
French  uniform  eagerly  waiting  to  see  us.  He 
told  us  that  he  was  an  American,  and  more 
than  that,  a  Californian.  His  name  was 
George  La  Messneger  and  he  was  sixty-seven 
years  old.  He  was  French  by  birth  and  had 
fought  in  the  Franco-Prussian  war,  but  the 
next  year  he  went  to  California  and  lived  in 
Los  Angeles  until  the  outbreak  of  the  great 
war.     Although  more  than  sixty,  La  Mess- 

144 


FIELD  PIECES  AND  BIG  GUNS 

neger  was  accepted  by  a  French  recruiting  of- 
ficer and  he  was  in  Verdun  two  weeks  after  he 
arrived  in  France.  Three  days  later  he  was 
wounded  and  when  we  met  him  he  had  added 
to  his  adventures  by  winning  a  promotion  to 
sous-Heutenant  and  gaining  the  croix  de  guerre 
and  the  medaille  mihtaire. 

Old  George  came  to  be  a  frequent  visitor, 
but  though  we  urged  him  on  he  would  never 
tell  us  much  about  the  war.  He  wanted  to 
talk  about  California. 

"I  tell  the  men  in  my  regiment,"  George 
would  begin,  "that  out  in  Los  Angeles  we  cut 
alfalfa  five  times  a  year,  but  they  won't  believe 
me. 

Gently  we  tried  to  lead  George  back  to  the 
war  and  his  experiences.  "How  did  you  get 
the  military  medal,  lieutenant?"  somebody 
asked. 

"Oh,  that  was  at  Verdun,"  repMed  the  old 
man. 

"It  must  have  been  pretty  hot  up  there," 
said  another  correspondent. 

"Yes,"  said  George,  and  he  began  to  muse. 
We  imagined  that  he  was  thinking  of  those 

145 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

hot  days  in  February  when  all  the  guns,  big 
and  little,  were  turned  loose. 

"Yes,"  said  George,  "it  was  pretty  hot,"  and 
we  drew  our  chairs  closer.  "You  know,"  con- 
tinued the  old  man,  "a  lot  of  people  will  tell 
you  that  Los  Angeles  is  hot.  Don't  pay  any 
attention  to  them.  I've  lived  there  forty  years, 
and  I've  slept  with  a  blanket  pretty  much  all 
the  time.     The  nights  are  always  cool." 

I  had  heard  George  before  and  I  knew  that 
he  was  gone  for  the  evening  now.  As  I  tip- 
toed out  of  the  room  the  old  soldier  in  French 
horizon  blue  was  just  warming  up  to  his  fa- 
vorite topic.  "San  Francisco's  nothing,"  said 
George,  dismissing  the  city  with  as  much  scorn 
as  if  it  had  been  Berlin  or  Munich.  He  talked 
with  such  vehemence  that  all  his  medals  rat- 
tled. 

"We're  nearer  the  Panama  Canal,"  said 
George,  "we're  nearer  China  and  Japan,  and 
as  for  harbors " 

But  just  then  the  door  closed. 


CHAPTER  XII 

OUR  AVIATORS  AND  A  FEW  OTHERS 

At  first  the  ace  is  low.  Our  young  aviators 
who  will  be  among  the  most  romantic  heroes 
of  them  all  begin  humbly  on  the  ground.  The 
American  army  now  has  the  largest  flying  field 
in  France  for  its  very  own,  but  during  the 
summer  and  early  autumn  many  of  our  men 
trained  in  the  French  schools.  There  his 
groundling  days  try  the  aviator's  dignity.  He 
must  hop  before  he  can  fly  and  perhaps  "hop" 
is  too  dignified  a  word.  When  we  visited  one 
of  the  biggest  schools,  all  the  new  pupils  were 
practicing  in  a  ridiculous  clipped  wing  Bleriot 
called  a  penguin.  This  machine  was  a  ground- 
hog which  scurried  over  the  earth  at  a  speed 
of  twenty  or  thirty  miles  an  hour.  It  never 
left  the  grass  tops  and  yet  it  provided  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  excitement  for  its  pilot,  or 
maybe  rider  would  be  better. 

147 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

The  favorite  trick  of  the  penguin  is  to  turn 
suddenly  in  a  short  half  circle  and  collapse  on 
its  side.  It  takes  a  good  deal  of  skill  to  keep 
it  straight  and  when  the  aviator  has  learned 
that  much  he  is  allowed  to  make  a  trip  in  a 
machine  which  leaps  a  little  in  the  air  every 
now  and  then,  only  to  flop  to  earth  again. 
Then  he  is  ready  to  fly  a  Bleriot,  though,  of 
course,  his  first  trips  are  made  as  a  passen- 
ger. Very  little  time  is  spent  in  flying.  Stay- 
ing up  in  the  air  is  no  great  trick.  It's  the 
coming  down  which  gives  the  trouble.  And  so 
the  student  is  eternally  trying  landings.  He 
smashes  a  good  many  machines  and  here  the 
French  show  their  keen  realization  of  the  men- 
tal factor  in  flying. 

"I  made  a  bad  landing  one  day,"  an  Amer- 
ican student  named  Billy  Parker  told  me,  *'and 
smashed  my  machine  up  good  and  proper.  I 
thought  I'd  killed  myself,  but  they  dragged  me 
out  from  under  the  junk,  picked  the  pieces  of 
wood  and  aluminum  out  of  my  head,  stufl*ed 
some  cotton  into  my  nose  to  check  the  bleed- 
ing and  in  fifteen  minutes  they  had  a  new  ma- 
chine out  and  had  me  up  in  the  air  again." 

148 


OUR  AVIATORS  AND  A  FEW  OTHERS 

Parker  said  he  felt  a  bit  queer  when  he  got 
up  in  the  air  again.  "I  had  a  sort  of  feeling 
that  I  belonged  down  on  the  ground  and  not 
up  there,"  he  said.  "That  was  peculiar  be- 
cause usually  the  air  feels  very  stable  and 
friendly.  You  hate  to  come  down,  but  this 
time  I  was  anxious  to  get  back  and  after  cir- 
cling the  field  once  I  came  down.  My  land- 
ing was  all  right,  too,  and  since  then  I've  never 
had  that  scared  feeling  about  the  air." 

The  French  theory  is  that  the  mistake  must 
be  corrected  immediately.  The  man  who  has 
had  a  smash-up  is  apt  to  get  air  shy  if  he  has  a 
chance  to  brood  over  his  mishap  for  a  day  or 
two. 

The  last  test  of  the  preliminary  school  is  a 
thirty  mile  flight  with  three  landings.  After 
he  has  done  that  the  student  goes  to  Pau  for 
his  test  in  acrobatics.  The  chief  stunt  set  for 
him  here  is  a  vrille.  The  student  is  required  to 
put  his  machine  into  a  spin  at  a  height  of  about 
3500  feet  and  bring  it  out  again.  The  trick 
is  not  particularly  difficult  if  the  man  keeps  his 
head,  but  the  tendency  is  to  turn  on  the  power 
which  only  accelerates  the  fall  and  some  are 

149 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

killed  at  Pau.  JNIy  friend  caught  malaria  as 
soon  as  he  got  there  and  was  allowed  to  take 
things  easily  for  a  week.  Finally  his  test  was 
set  for  Wednesdaj'-.  On  IMonday  morning  the 
man  who  slept  in  the  cot  to  his  left  went  out 
for  his  test  and  was  killed  and  on  Tuesday  the 
man  from  the  right  hand  cot  was  killed.  Death 
came  very  close  to  the  young  American.  He 
and  a  French  student  arrived  at  the  training 
ground  at  about  the  same  time.  Two  machines 
were  ready.  The  instructor  hesitated  a  second 
and  then  assigned  the  American  to  the  ma- 
chine at  the  right.  A  few  minutes  later  the 
Frenchman  was  killed  when  a  wing  came  off 
his  machine  as  soon  as  he  began  his  vrille.  For- 
tunately Parker  did  not  know  that  until  after 
he  had  passed  his  own  test.  He  saw  one  other 
man  killed  before  he  left  Pau  and  that  hor- 
rified him  more  than  the  accident  on  the  morn- 
ing of  his  trial. 

"The  judge  who  decided  whether  you  passed 
your  test  was  a  little  Frenchman  with  a  mon- 
ocle," he  said.  "He  sat  in  a  rocking  chair 
at  the  edge  of  the  field  and  you  had  to  do  the 
vrille  straight  in  front  of  him  or  it  didn't  count. 

150 


OUR  AVIATORS  AND  A  FEW  OTHERS 

He  simply  wouldn't  turn  to  look  at  a  flyer.  I 
was  standing  beside  him  when  one  fellow  got 
rattled  in  the  middle  of  a  vrille  and  put  his 
power  on.  Even  at  that  he  almost  lifted  his 
machine  out  but  she  came  down  too  fast  for 
him.  There  was  a  big  smash-up  and  people 
^ame  running  out  to  the  wreck.  They  sent  for 
a  doctor  and  then  for  a  priest,  but  the  terrible 
little  man  never  moved  from  his  chair.  'You 
see,'  he  cried  to  me,  'he  was  stupid!  stupid!' 
This  flying  test  had  come  to  seem  nothing  more 
than  an  examination  bluebook  to  him.  A  fel- 
low passed  or  he  flunked  and  that  was  all  there 
was  to  it." 

Luck  plays  its  biggest  part  in  a  flier's  early 
days  at  the  front.  He  has  a  lot  to  learn  after 
he  gets  there,  but  the  French  do  not  nurse  him 
along  much.  He  has  to  take  his  chances.  It 
may  be  that  he  will  get  in  some  very  tight  place 
before  he  has  learned  the  fine  points  and  a 
future  star  will  be  lost  at  the  outset  of  his 
career.  On  the  other  hand  he  may  come  up 
against  German  fliers  as  green  as  himself  and 
gradually  gain  a  technique  before  he  is  called 
upon  to  face  an  enemy  ace  or  a  superior  com- 

151 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

bination  of  planes.  At  the  front  as  in  the 
schools  the  French  paj^  keen  attention  to  the 
mental  state  of  the  fliers. 

"There  was  always  champagne  at  mess  and 
they  kept  the  graphophone  playing  all  through 
dinner  any  night  a  man  from  our  squadron 
didn't  come  back,"  an  aviator  said  to  me.  "One 
afternoon  we  lost  two  men  and  before  dinner 
they  took  a  leaf  out  of  the  table.  Our  com- 
mander didn't  want  us  to  notice  any  empty 
seats  or  the  extra  space." 

It  is  difficult  to  saj^  which  nation  has  the 
most  daring  aviators,  but  that  honor  prob- 
ably belongs  to  the  English.  I  asked  a 
Frenchman  about  it  and  he  said:  "The  Eng- 
lish do  most  of  the  things  you  would  call 
stunts.  There  was  one,  for  instance,  that  made 
a  landing  on  a  German  aviation  field  and  after 
firing  a  few  rounds  at  the  aerodrome  flew  away 
again.  That  was  a  stunt.  But  we  think  the 
English  are  fools  with  their  sportsmanship  and 
all  that.  It  doesn't  work  now.  We  look  at  it 
a  little  differently.  We  cannot  take  fool 
chances.  If  you  take  a  fool  chance  you  are 
very  likely  to  get  killed.    That  is  not  nice,  of 

152 


OUR  AVIATORS  AND  A  FEW  OTHERS 

course.  We  do  not  like  to  be  killed,  but  more 
than  that,  it  is  one  less  man  for  France.  We 
must  wait  until  there  is  a  fair  show." 

"And  when  is  that?"  I  asked. 

"When  there  are  not  more  than  four  Ger- 
mans against  you,"  said  the  careful  French- 
man. 

The  warlike  spirit  of  the  French  aviators 
extended  even  to  the  servants  at  the  prelimin- 
ary school  which  we  visited.  The  Americans 
there  were  all  quartered  in  one  big  room  and 
their  general  man  of  all  work  was  a  little  An- 
namite  from  French-Indo-China.  Hy  seemed 
the  most  peaceful  member  of  a  peace-loving 
race  as  he  moved  about  the  barracks  just  be- 
fore dawn  every  morning  waking  up  the  stu- 
dents with  a  smiling  "Bon  jour",  and  an 
equall^'  good-natured  "Cafe."  One  day  he  had 
a  holiday  and  after  borrowing  a  uniform  he 
went  to  a  photographer's  in  the  nearest  town. 
From  the  photographer  he  borrowed  a  rifle,  a 
cutlass  and  a  pistol.  He  thrust  the  cutlass  into 
his  belt  and  shouldered  the  other  two  weapons. 
After  he  had  assumed  a  fighting  face  the  pic- 
ture was  taken. 

153 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

The  next  day  Hy  varied  the  routine.  He 
began  with  "Bon  jour"  as  usual,  but  before  he 
said  "Cafe"  he  drew  from  behind  his  back  the 
photograph,  and  pointing  to  it  proudly,  ex- 
claimed, "brave  soldat." 

We  went  from  the  French  school  to  the  big 
field  where  the  American  camp  was  under  con- 
struction. The  bulk  of  the  work  was  being 
done  by  German  prisoners.  One  of  these,  a 
sergeant,  had  been  a  well  known  architect  in 
Munich.  The  American  workers  consulted 
him  now  and  then  in  regard  to  some  building 
problem  and  he  always  gave  them  good  advice. 
He  took  almost  a  professional  pride  in  the 
growing  buildings  even  if  they  were  designed 
to  house  the  men  who  will  one  day  be  the  eyes 
of  the  American  army.  We  asked  another 
prisoner  how  he  got  along  with  the  Americans 
and  he  replied:  "Oh,  some  of  them  aren't  half 
bad."  A  third  spoke  to  us  in  meager  broken 
English,  although  he  said  that  he  had  lived  five 
years  in  Buifalo.  "Are  you  going  back  to 
Germany  after  the  war?"  we  asked  him. 
"Nein,"  he  replied  decisively,  "Chicago." 

Most  prisoners  professed  to  be  confident 
154 


OUR  AVIATORS  AND  A  FEW  OTHERS 

that  Germany  would  win  the  war  and  they  all 
based  their  faith  on  the  submarine.  As  we 
started  to  go  the  man  from  Buffalo  suddenly 
held  out  his  hand  and  said:  "So  long."  Sev- 
eral of  the  correspondents  shook  hands  with 
him  much  to  the  horror  of  a  young  American 
in  the  French  flying  corps  who  accompanied 
us. 

"You  mustn't  do  that,"  he  explained.  "Any 
Frenchman  who  saw  you  do  that  would  be  very 
much  shocked." 

I  remembered  then  that  when  I  saw  German 
prisoners  in  any  of  the  large  towns  the  French 
inhabitants  took  great  pains  to  ignore  them. 
I  never  heard  French  people  jeer  at  their  pris- 
oners. Their  attitude  was  one  of  complete 
aloofness.  Once  I  saw  prisoners  in  a  big  rail- 
road station  and  the  crowds  swept  by  on  either 
side  without  a  glance  as  if  these  men  from 
Prussia  had  been  so  many  trunks  or  trucks  or 
benches. 

If  the  young  Americans  at  the  school  had 
not  been  so  busy  learning  the  business  of  fly- 
ing they  could  have  formed  a  cracker  jack  nine 

155 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

or  eight  or  eleven,  as  the  squad  included  some 
of  the  most  famous  of  our  college  athletes. 

We  also  visited  an  English  aerodrome  which 
was  not  far  from  our  headquarters.  This  was 
a  camp  from  which  planes  started  for  raids  into 
Germany.  The  men  who  were  carrying  on  this 
work  were  all  youngsters.  I  saw  no  one  who 
seemed  to  be  more  than  twenty-five.  Just  the 
day  before  we  arrived  the  Germans  had  dis- 
covered their  whereabouts  and  had  raided  the 
hangars.  One  man  had  been  killed  and  two 
planes  wrecked.  Machine  gun  bullets  had  left 
holes  in  all  the  buildings  about  the  place.  The 
English  officer  smiled  when  we  looked  about. 
"Oh,  yes,"  he  said,  "the  Hun  was  over  last 
night  and  gave  us  a  bit  of  a  bounce."  His 
slang  was  fluent  but  puzzling.  He  was  ex- 
plaining why  he  and  his  fellow  aviators  flew  at 
a  certain  height  on  raids.  "You  see,"  he  said? 
"the  Hun  can't  get  his  hate  up  as  far  as  that." 

The  bombing  machines  of  the  squadron  were 
huge,  powerful  planes,  but  they  all  had  pet 
names  painted  upon  them  such  as  "Bessie"  and 
"Baby"  and  "Winifred"  which  had  been  twice 
to    Stuttgart.     These   English   fliers   were   a 

156 


OUR  AVIATORS  AND  A  FEW  OTHERS 

quiet,  reticent  crowd  who  became  fearfully  em- 
barrassed if  anybody  tried  to  draw  them  out 
on  the  subject  of  their  exploits.  One  of  them 
went  over  to  an  American  Red  Cross  hospital 
nearby  a  few  days  after  our  visit  and  played 
bridge  with  three  American  doctors  there.  He 
had  been  a  rather  frequent  visitor  and  a  keen 
and  eager  player,  so  they  were  somewhat  sur- 
prised when  he  told  them  at  nine  o'clock  that 
he  would  have  to  go.  He  was  three  francs  be- 
hind and  started  to  fumble  around  in  his 
pockets  to  find  the  change.  "Oh,  never  mind," 
said  one  of  the  doctors.  "Some  other  night 
will  do.  You'll  be  over  here  again  pretty  soon, 
I  hope." 

"Oh,  no,"  said  the  young  Englishman,  "I'd 
rather  pay  up  now.  Sorry  to  toddle  off  so 
early.  Beastly  nuisance,  you  know,  but  I've 
got  to  go  over  and  bomb  Metz  to-night." 

Much  more  would  be  heard  of  the  flying  ex- 
ploits of  the  English  if  their  individual  reti- 
cence were  not  combined  with  a  governmental 
policy  of  not  announcing  the  names  of  the 
fliers  who  bring  down  enemy  planes.  Unfor- 
tunately, the  American  army  seems  prepared 

157 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

to  follow  this  example.  One  of  the  high  of- 
ficers in  the  American  air  service  in  France 
said  that  he  did  not  intend  to  treat  aviators 
like  prima  donnas.  He  added  that  he  thought 
it  was  a  big  mistake  to  advertise  aces.  How- 
ever, the  Germans  play  up  their  star  airmen  in 
the  newspapers  and  on  the  moving  picture 
screen  and  it  must  be  admitted  that  they  have 
not  made  many  mistakes  from  a  purely  mili- 
tary point  of  view. 

Inevitably,  however,  the  status  of  the  flier  is 
changing.  Nobody  regrets  this  more  than  the 
aviators  of  France.  The  French  army  used  to 
have  a  saying,  "all  aviators  are  a  little  crazy," 
and  nobody  believed  it  so  thoroughly  as  the 
aviators.  They  took  great  pride  in  being  un- 
like other  people  in  a  war  which  was  all 
cramped  up  into  schedule.  An  aviator  got  up 
when  he  felt  like  it  and  flew  when  the  mood 
was  on.  If  he  felt  depressed,  or  unlucky,  or 
out  of  sorts,  he  rolled  over  and  went  to  sleep 
again.  Nobody  said  anything  about  it.  When 
he  fought  the  battle  was  a  duel  with  an  op- 
ponent who  was  also  a  knight  and  sportsman 
although  a  Boche. 

158 


OUR  AVIATORS  AND  A  FEW  OTHERS 

But  there  was  no  keeping  efficiency  out  of 
the  air.  The  German  brought  it  there.  He 
discovered  that  two  planes  were  better  than 
one  and  three  even  better.  He  introduced 
teamwork  and  the  lone  French  errants  of  the 
air  began  to  be  picked  off  by  groups  of  Ger- 
mans who  would  send  one  machine  after  an- 
other diving  down  on  a  single  foe.  The  Fly- 
ing Circus  and  other  aerial  teams  of  the  Ger- 
mans have  not  only  driven  chivalry  from  the 
air,  but  they  have  taken  a  good  deal  of  the 
joy  out  of  flying.  Very  reluctantly  the 
French  have  adopted  squadron  flying  and  the 
aii'man  now  finds  himself  obeying  commands 
just  as  if  he  were  an  infantryman  or  an  artil- 
lerist. Even  the  civilian  population  has  begun 
to  show  that  it  realized  the  change  in  the  status 
of  the  aviator.  There  was,  for  instance,  poor 
Navarre,  the  finest  flier  in  the  army,  who  was 
sent  to  prison  because  he  came  to  Paris  on  a 
spree  and  ran  down  three  gendarmes  with  his 
racing  auto.  French  aviators  cannot  see  the 
sense  of  punishing  Navarre.  I  only  heard  one 
aviator  who  had  any  excuse  to  offer  for  the 
civilian  authorities. 

159 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

"After  all,"  he  said,  "they  showed  a  little 
judgment.  They  did  not  arrest  Navarre  un- 
til he  had  run  down  three  gendarmes." 

Although  many  men  in  the  army  have 
longer  lists  of  fallen  Germans  to  their  credit, 
no  Frenchman  has  ever  flown  with  the  grace 
and  skill  of  Navarre.  The  great  Guynemer 
was  only  a  fair  flier  and  owed  his  success  to  his 
skill  as  a  gunner.  But  Navarre  was  master  of 
all  the  tricks.  Upon  one  occasion  he  bet  a  com- 
panion that  he  could  make  a  landing  on  an 
army  blanket.  The  blanket  was  duly  fastened 
in  the  middle  of  the  field  and  away  flew  the 
aviator.  His  preliminary  calculation  was  just 
a  bit  off  and  at  the  last  minute  he  nosed 
sharply  down  and  wrecked  the  machine.  But 
he  hit  the  blanket  and  won  the  bet. 

Next  to  Germany,  America  has  done  most 
to  take  romance  out  of  the  air,  so  the  French- 
men say.  The  American  air  student  attends 
lectures  and  learns  about  meteorology  and 
physics.  He  learns  how  to  take  a  motor  apart 
and  put  it  together  again.  In  fact,  he  is  versed 
in  all  the  theory  of  flying  long  before  he  is  al- 
lowed to  venture  in  the  air.    Of  course  this  is 

160 


OUR  AVIATORS  AND  A  FEW  OTHERS 

the  best  S3^stem.  It  would  be  the  system  of 
anj'-  nation  which  had  the  opportunity  of  tak- 
ing its  time,  yet  the  scholarly  approach  can- 
not fail  to  dim  adventure  a  little  bit.  Launce- 
lot  would  have  been  a  somewhat  less  dashing 
knight  if  he  had  begun  his  training  in  chivalry 
by  learning  the  minimum  number  of  foot 
pounds  necessary  to  unhorse  an  opponent  or 
the  relative  resilience  of  chain  mail  and  armor. 
Yet  not  all  the  training  in  the  world  can  take 
the  stunt  spirit  out  of  the  young  American 
aviator.  One  who  shipped  as  a  passenger  with 
a  Frenchman  bound  for  a  bombing  raid,  paid 
for  his  passage  by  crawling  out  along  the  fusel- 
age of  the  machine  to  releas*-  a  bomb  which  had 
stuck.  But  it  was  a  little  incident  back  of  the 
lines  which  gave  me  the  best  insight  into  the 
character  of  the  American  aviator.  I  know  a 
young  aviator  of  twenty-five  who  is  already 
a  major  and  the  commander  of  a  squadron. 
He  wasn't  particularly  old  for  his  years,  either. 
I  remember  he  told  us  with  great  glee  how  he 
and  another  young  aviation  officer  had  nailed 
the  purser  in  his  cabin  one  night  during  the 
trip  across.     Yet  he  could  be  stern  upon  oc- 

161 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

casion.  He  was  walking  along  the  field  one 
day  when  he  saw  a  plane  looping.  He  was 
surprised  because  the  French  instructor  at- 
tached to  the  squadron  had  told  them  that  the 
type  of  machine  which  they  were  using  would 
not  do  the  loop  the  loop.  It  didn't  have  suf- 
ficient power,  he  said,  nor  would  it  stand  the 
strain. 

"It  made  five  loops,"  said  the  major  in  tell- 
ing the  story,  "and  they  were  dandies,  too,  as 
good  as  I  ever  saw.  I  thought  it  was  the 
Frenchman,  of  course,  but  I  asked  somebody 
and  he  said,  'No,  it's  Harry.'  When  he  came 
down  I  bawled  him  out.  'You  were  told  not 
to  do  that,  weren't  you?'  I  asked  him.  He  said, 
'Yes,  sir.'  'Well,  what  did  you  do  it  for?'  I 
asked  him.  'I  guess  it  was  because  the  French- 
man told  me  it  was  impossible,'  he  said.  I  told 
him  that  he  would  have  to  turn  his  machine 
over  to  another  man  and  that  other  disciplin- 
ary measures  would  be  applied.  He's  in  dis- 
grace still  and  I  suppose  I've  got  to  keep  it  up 
for  a  while.  That's  all  right,  good  discipline 
and  all  that  sort  of  thing,  you  know,  but  there's 
one  thing  I  can't  take  away  from  him,  and  no- 

162 


OUR  AVIATORS  AND  A  FEW  OTHERS 

body  else  can.  He's  the  only  man  in  France 
that  ever  looped  that  type  of  machine.  He  did 
it.  By  golly,  I  envy  him,  but  I  don't  dare  let 
him  know  it." 


CHAPTER  XIII 

HOSPITALS  AND  ENGINEERS 

Some  of  the  compliments  the  mannerly 
French  poured  out  upon  the  army  left  the 
Americans  feeling  that  they  didn't  quite  de- 
serve them.  Others  they  could  take  standing. 
Well  to  the  front  of  the  second  lot  were  all 
the  good  words  for  the  medical  corps  A 
leading  writer  for  a  big  Parisian  afternoon 
paper  took  the  first  three  columns  of  his  first 
page  to  say  with  undisguised  emotion  that  the 
French  government  not  merely  could,  with 
profit,  but  should  and  must  pattern  after  the 
American  Army  Medical  Service. 

One  good  army  hospital  in  France  is  like 
another  and  so  let  it  be  the  New  York  Post 
Graduate  unit  which  was  picked  at  random 
for  the  purpose  of  a  visit.  We  straggled  off* 
the  train  with  two  old  peasant  women  whose 
absorbed  faces  under  their  peaked  white  caps 

164 


HOSPITALS  AND  ENGINEERS 

did  not  encourage  us  to  ask  our  way  of  them, 
and  one  poilu,  bent  under  the  astonishing  mis- 
cellany of  the  home-going  French  soldier.  He 
lost  his  chance  to  escape  us  by  eyeing  us  with 
frank  if  friendly  curiosity.  Could  he  direct 
us  to  the  American  Army  Hospital,  we  asked, 
and  he  wrinkled  his  weather  worn  nose.  No, 
he  hadn't  been  home  since  the  Americans  had 
come  to  war,  but,  of  course,  there  was  only 
one  building  in  town  big  enough  and  new 
enough  to  be  used  by  the  Americans.  If  we 
should  turn  to  the  left  and  then  to  the  right 
and  then  to  the  left  again  we  would  come  to 
the  school  and  there  he  thought  we  would  find 
the  Americans.  We  did.  To  the  far  end  of 
the  little  town  we  trudged  till  we  came  to  a 
low  stone  building,  gray  and  white,  of  good 
stout  masonry.  We  knew  it  was  the  American 
hospital  because  over  the  arched  entrance  there 
hung  a  "banniere  etoilee." 

We  neared  the  entrance  to  the  tune  of  some 
trumpet  blasts,  not  very  well  played,  and  we 
peered  from  arch  to  inner  court  yard  just  in 
time  to  see  a  swarm  of  khaki-half -clad  soldiers 
running  out  from  barracks.    By  the  time  they 

165 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

reached  the  mess  door  they  were  khaki-clad. 
The  officer  who  came  to  take  us  about  ex- 
plained that  on  Sunday  mornings  everybody 
slept  late  and  dressed  on  the  way  to  break- 
fast and  that  discipline  was  better  on  week 
days.  Then  he  told  us  that  of  all  the  privates 
in  that  unit  not  one  had  ever  been  a  soldier 
before.  They  had  been  picked  for  medical 
service  first  and  military  service  at  such  time 
as  the  officers  had  learned  enough  to  teach  it 
to  them.  I  remember  later  that  one  of  the  sol- 
diers objected  privately  to  being  drilled  by  a 
dentist. 

Nine-tenths  of  tlie  men  were  fresh  out  of 
college,  the  officer  told  us,  and  half  the  other 
tenth  were  freshmen  or  sophomores.  Many  of 
the  enlisted  men,  we  were  told,  had  left  in- 
comes in  the  tens  of  thousands  and  a  few  in 
the  hundreds  of  thousands.  The  enlisted  per- 
sonnel included  one  matinee  idol,  one  young 
New  York  dramatic  critic,  two  middling  well 
known  young  authors,  a  composer  of  good  but 
saleable  music,  and  a  golfer  who  gets  two  in 
the  national  ratinsr. 

CD 

The  wards  were    not   very  different  from 
166 


HOSPITALS  AND  ENGINEERS 

those  of  a  New  York  hospital  back  home,  ex- 
cept that  they  housed  a  strange  mixture  of 
patients.  About  half  were  American  soldiers 
and  the  rest  were  civilians  from  the  country 
round  about.  The  French  civilians  were  con- 
vinced that  though  the  American  doctors 
might  cure  them  with  their  marvelous  medi- 
cines and  speckless  cleanliness  they  would 
surely  kill  them  with  air.  This  particular  base 
hospital  was  fulfilling  two  functions  for  the 
civilian  population.  It  was  seeking  to  take 
out  adenoids  and  let  in  air.  A  great  New 
lYork  specialist  was  attending  to  the  adenoids 
and  making  progress.  It  was  not  always  pos- 
sible to  convince  the  patient  that  it  would  do 
him  any  good  to  have  his  adenoids  removed, 
but  if  the  operation  gave  the  kind  American 
doctor  any  pleasure  he  was  willing  to  let  him 
go  ahead.  The  air  campaign  was  making 
slower  progress.  Dislike  of  air  is  centuries  old 
in  France  and  it  has  become  an  instinct  with 
the  race.  I  rode  in  a  railroad  car  with  a 
French  aviator  on  a  balmy  day  of  early 
autumn  and  his  first  act  upon  entering  the 
compartment    was    to    close    both    windows. 

167 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

Everybody  in  this  part  of  France  has  his  bed 
placed  inside  a  closet  and  at  night  he  closes 
the  doors. 

Worst  of  all  were  the  extra  precautions 
against  air  which  the  French  peasants  took  in 
case  of  illness.  The  young  French  doctors 
were  at  the  front  and  the  old  men  who  re- 
mained always  began  the  treatment  of  a  case 
by  advising  the  patient's  relatives  to  close  all 
the  windows  and  start  a  fire. 

At  the  call  of  sick  babies  and  old  folk  of  the 
countryside  came  aristocrats  of  the  New  York 
medical  profession  whose  fees  at  home  would 
have  bought  the  house  in  which  the  patient 
lived.  Later,  of  course,  the  doctors  of  the  hos- 
pital will  be  more  rushed  by  the  necessities  of 
the  soldiers. 

"This  is  hardly  more  than  a  germ  of  what 
we  plan,"  a  doctor  explained  to  us.  "Do  you 
see  those  tents?"  He  pointed  across  a  small 
field.  "Those  are  American  engineers  and 
they're  going  to  do  nothing  for  the  next  few 
months  but  build  additions  to  this  hospital. 
Every  time  I  go  'way  for  a  day  I  come  back 
to  find  that  they've  added  a  thousand  beds  to 

168 


HOSPITALS  AND  ENGINEERS 

the  capacity  we're  planning  for.  We  will  ex- 
tend all  the  way  across  the  fields  over  to  that 
road  before  they're  done  with  us."  He  spoke 
in  a  joyful  voice  as  if  nothing  in  the  world  w^as 
quite  so  inspiring  as  a  huge  hospital  filled  with 
patients.  That  was  the  professional  touch. 
I  remember  the  story  one  of  the  doctors  told 
us  about  a  young  surgeon  who  was  sent  up  to 
the  French  front  to  help  handle  the  cases  after 
a  big  drive.  One  of  his  first  patients  was  a 
German  prisoner  who  had  been  shot  just  above 
the  elbow  and  bayoneted  in  the  stomach.  The 
doctor  had  no  great  trouble  with  the  elbow  and 
he  did  what  he  could  for  the  abdominal  wound. 

"I  could  save  that  man  all  right  if  it  wasn't 
for  that  bayonet  wound,"  he  said  to  another 
American  doctor  close  at  hand,  and  then  he 
added  in  a  reproachful  voice  as  he  pointed  to 
the  gash:  "That's  an  awful  dangerous  place  to 
stab  a  man." 

There  were  no  wounded  at  the  hospital  at 
the  time  of  our  visit,  but  some  of  the  soldiers 
in  the  medical  ward  were  very  sick.  There  was 
one  boy  there,  who  has  since  mended  and  gone 
away,  whose  recovery  seemed  hopeless.     The 

169 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

doctor  in  charge  saw  that  something  was  trou- 
bling the  young  soldier  and  so  he  came  to  him 
and  told  him  that  he  was  aggravating  his  ill- 
ness by  this  worry  or  desire. 

"Whatever  this  thing  is,  you  must  tell  me," 
said  the  doctor. 

"Do  you  think  I'm  going  to  die?"  the  boy 
asked  anxiously. 

"Oh,  I  wouldn't  say  that,"  the  doctor  an- 
swered a  little  evasively. 

"I  knew  I  was  pretty  sick,"  said  the  boy, 
catching  the  evasiveness  of  the  doctor's  tone, 
"and  if  you  think  I'm  going  to  die  and  won't 
ever  get  back  home  again,  there's  just  one 
thing  I  want  to  ask  you  to  do  for  me." 

"What's  that?"  said  the  doctor. 

"Couldn't  you  fix  it  up  for  me  just  once  to 
have  ham  and  eggs  and  apple  pie  for  break- 
fast?" 

The  most  important  thing  in  the  case  of  all 
the  sick  men  was  to  keep  them  from  brooding 
about  home.  The  doctors  made  a  point  of  get- 
ting around  and  talking  to  the  patients  to 
cheer  them  up.  One  of  them  complained  of 
homesickness. 

170 


HOSPITALS  AND  ENGINEERS 

"Yes,"  said  the  doctor,  "I  suppose  we  all 
have  people  back  there  that  we  miss." 

"You  can  just  bet  I  do,"  said  the  sick  sol- 
dier, "I've  got  the  finest  wife  in  the  world  in 
Des  Moines  and  two  children  and  a  Ford." 

The  health  of  the  staff  was  excellent,  but 
sometimes  they  felt  homesick,  too.  The  en- 
listed men  gave  a  show  the  night  I  was  at  the 
hospital  and  during  the  course  of  the  perform- 
ance everybody  wept  or  at  least  got  moist  eyed 
because  the  play  was  about  New  York.  It 
was  laid  in  a  year  as  nameless  as  the  place 
where  the  hospital  is  located.  All  the  pro- 
gram said  was:  "The  bachelor  apartments 
of  Schuyler  Van  Allen  on  a  fine  June  night  a 
few  weeks  after  the  end  of  the  war."  Schuyler 
had  just  come  back  from  Europe  and  he  found 
his  apartment  with  everything  just  as  it  was 
on  the  night  he  had  sailed  for  France.  There 
was  the  daily  paper  he  had  left  behind  with 
the  date  May  3,  1917,  and  he  looked  at  the  old 
sheet  and  mused  as  he  read  some  of  the  head- 
lines : 

"Kaiser  Calls  on  Troops  to  Stand  Firm," 
read  Schuyler.    "The  Kaiser,"  he  said  to  him- 

ITl 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

self,  and  then  he  added:  "I  wonder  whatever 
became  of  him." 

The  audience  laughed  at  that,  but  in  a  mo- 
ment the  doctors  and  the  nurses  and  the  pa- 
tients who  weren't  sick  enough  to  stay  in  bed 
wept.  It  was  all  because  Schuyler  looked  out 
of  the  window  and  said  to  his  friend:  "Oh,  it's 
great  to  be  on  Fifth  Avenue  again.  I  want 
to  see  it  in  every  light  and  at  every  hour  of 
the  day.  It  was  fairly  blazing  tonight  with  the 
same  old  hurrying  crowd  jamming  the  traffic 
at  Forty-second  Street  and  the  same  old  mob 
pushing  and  shoving  its  way  into  the  Grand 
Central  subway  station."  The  mention  of  the 
subway  was  too  much  for  the  audience.  By 
this  time  the  nurse  who  sat  in  front  of  me  was 
dabbing  violently  at  her  eyes  with  her  pocket 
handkerchief.  She  was  breaking  my  heart  and 
I  leaned  forward  and  asked:  "What  part  of 
New  York  do  you  come  from?" 

"I  wasn't  ever  in  New  York,"  she  said.  "I 
come  from  Lima,  Ohio." 

Like  the  medical  corps,  the  engineers  were 
peculiarly  American  and  peculiarly  efficient 
as  well.     We  first  came  upon  them  when  we 

172 


HOSPITALS  AND  ENGINEERS 

saw  a  tall,  stringy  man  looking  out  of  the 
window  of  a  little  locomotive  which  pulled  a 
train  up  to  a  point  at  the  French  front.  We 
thought  he  was  an  American  because  his  jaws 
were  moving  back  and  forth  slowly  and  medi- 
tatively.    Inquiry  brought  confirmation. 

"Sure,  I'm  an  American,"  said  the  man  in 
the  blue  jumpers.  "I  guess  I've  kicked  a  hobo 
off  the  train  for  every  telegraph  pole  back  on 
the  old  Rock  Island,  but  this  is  the  toughest 
railroading  job  I've  struck  yet." 

The  man  in  the  locomotive  was  a  member 
of  an  American  regiment  of  railroad  engineers 
which  had  taken  over  an  important  military 
road.  They  had  the  honor  to  be  the  first  Amer- 
ican troops  at  the  French  front  who  came  un- 
der fire.  The  engineers  were  willing  to  admit 
that  while  washouts  and  spreading  rails  were 
old  stories  to  them,  they  did  get  a  bit  of  a 
thrill  the  first  time  they  found  their  tracks  torn 
up  by  shellfire.  But  the  aeroplanes  were 
worse. 

"One  night,"  said  our  friend  the  engineer, 
"there  was  one  of  those  flying  machines  just 
followed  along  with  us  and  every  time  we  fired 

173 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

the  engine  and  the  sparks  flew  up  she'd  drop  a 
bomb  on  us  or  shoot  at  us  with  her  machine 
gun.  We  tried  to  hit  it  up  a  bit,  but  she  kept 
right  up  with  us.  They  didn't  hit  us,  but  once 
they  got  so  rough  we  just  slowed  down  and 
laid  under  the  engine  for  a  spell  until  they 
decided  to  quit  picking  on  us." 

This  regiment  of  railroad  engineers  was  the 
huskiest  outfit  I  saw  in  France.  It  was  care- 
fully selected  from  the  railroads  running  into 
Chicago.  Of  the  men  originally  selected  only 
about  one-seventh  were  taken  because  the  rail- 
roads found  so  many  men  who  were  eager  to 
go.  One  company  boasted  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  six-footers  and  all  were  two-fisted 
fighters.  The  discipline  of  the  regiment,  of 
course,  was  not  that  of  an  infantry  unit.  I 
watched  an  animated  discussion  between  a  cap- 
tain and  his  men  as  to  where  some  material 
should  be  placed  when  the  regiment  first 
moved  into  a  new  camp. 

"You've  got  the  wrong  dope  about  that, 
BiU,"  said  a  private  to  his  captain  very  earn- 
estly.   The  officer  looked  at  him  severely. 

"I've  told  you  before  about  this  discipline 
174 


HOSPITALS  AND  ENGINEERS 

business,  Harry,"  he  said.  "Any  time  you 
want  to  kick  about  my  orders  you  call  me 
mister."  It  is  hard  for  a  railroad  man  to 
realize  that  a  couple  of  silver  bars  have 
changed  a  yardmaster  into  a  captain. 

The  regiment  set  great  store  by  the  number 
thirteen.  It  was  put  into  service  on  a  Friday 
the  thirteenth  and  it  left  its  American  base  in 
two  sections  of  thirteen  cars  each.  The  loco- 
motives' headlight  numbers  each  totaled  thir- 
teen and  the  thirteenth  of  a  month  found  the 
regiment  arriving  at  its  European  port  of 
entr)'-.  The  thirteenth  of  the  next  month  found 
the  regiment  starting  for  its  French  base  and 
when  the  camp  was  reached  a  group  of  inter- 
preters was  waiting. 

"How  many  are  you?"  asked  the  colonel. 

"Myself  and  twelve  companions,"  rephed 
one  of  the  Frenchmen. 

The  regiment  will  never  forget  the  first 
night  at  its  French  base.  It  arrived  at  mid- 
night but  crowds  thronged  the  darkened  streets 
and  gave  the  big  Americans  an  enthusiastic 
greeting,  although  it  was  forbidden  to  talk 
above  undertones.     Since  they  could  not  hur- 

175 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

rah  for  the  soldiers,  the  villagers  hugged  them, 
and  from  black  windows  roses  were  pelted  on 
shadowy  figures  who  tramped  up  the  street  to 
the  low  rumble  of  a  muffled  band. 

"Great  people,  these  French,  so  demonstra- 
tive," said  a  captain,  who  was  once  a  train- 
master in  a  Texas  town. 

"I  was  in  the  theater  the  other  night,"  he 
said,  "and  a  couple  of  performers  on  the  stage 
started  to  sing  'Madelon.'  Well,  I'd  heard  it 
before  and  I  knew  the  chorus,  so  when  they 
got  that  far  along  I  joined  in.  Well,  there 
was  a  young  girl  sitting  next  me  and  when  she 
saw  that  I  knew  the  song  she  just  threw  her 
arms  around  my  neck  and  kissed  me. 

"And  now,"  said  the  captain,  "everybody  in 
the  regiment's  after  me  to  teach  'em  that 
song." 


CHAPTER  XIV 

WE  VISIT  THE  FRENCH  ARMY 

*'The  Germans  haven't  thrown  a  single 
shell  into  Rheims  today,"  said  our  conducting 
officer  apologetically.  "Yesterday,"  he  con- 
tinued more  cheerfully,  "they  sent  more  than 
five  hundred  big  ones  and  they  wounded  two 
of  my  officers." 

We  left  the  little  inn  at  the  fringe  of  the 
town  and  rode  into  the  square  in  front  of  the 
cathedral.  At  the  door  the  officer  turned  us 
over  to  the  curator.  The  old  man  led  us  up 
the  aisle  to  a  point  not  far  from  the  altar. 
Here  he  stopped,  and  pointing  to  a  great  shell 
hole  in  the  floor  said:  "On  this  spot  in  the  year 
496  Clovis,  the  King  of  the  Franks,  was  bap- 
tized by  the  blessed  St.  Remi  with  oil  which 
was  brought  from  heaven  in  a  holy  flask  by  a 
dove." 

Something  flew  over  the  cathedral  just 
then,  but  we  knew  it  was  not  a  dove.    It  whis- 

177 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

tied  like  a  strong  wind,  and  presently  the  shop 
of  a  confectioner  some  ten  blocks  away  folded 
up  with  a  ripping,  smashing  sound.  Clovis, 
with  his  fourteen  centuries  wi-apped  about  him, 
was  safe  enough.  He  had  quit  the  spot  in 
time.  But  a  younger  man  ducked.  The  old 
guide  did  not  even  look  up. 

"The  first  stone  of  the  present  cathedral  was 
laid  in  May,  1212,  by  the  Archbishop  Alberic 
de  Humbert,"  he  said. 

Another  big  shell  tore  the  sky,  and  this  time 
the  smash  was  nearer.  It  seemed  certainly  no 
more  than  nine  blocks  away.  The  young  man 
began  to  calculate.  He  figured  that  he  was 
seven  centuries  down,  while  the  Germans  had 
nine  blocks  to  go.  That  was  something,  but 
the  guide  failed  to  keep  up  his  pace  through 
the  centuries.  There  were  no  more  happy 
hiatuses. 

"Scholars  dispute,"  he  continued,  "as  to  who 
was  the  architect  of  the  cathedral.  Some  say 
it  was  designed  by  Robert  de  Coucy;  others 
nam.e  Bernard  de  Soissons,  but  certain  author- 
ities hold  to  Gauthier  de  Reims  and  Jean 
d'Orbais."    Two  more  shells  crossed  the  cathe- 

178 


WE  VISIT  THE  FRENCH  ARMY 

dral.  The  controversy  seemed  regrettable  and 
the  young  man  shifted  constantly  from  foot  to 
foot.  He  appeared  to  feel  that  there  was  less 
chance  of  being  hit  if  he  were  on  the  wing,  so 
to  speak. 

"One  or  two  have  named  Jean  Loups,"  said 
the  guide,  but  he  shook  his  head  even  as  he 
mentioned  him.  It  was  evident  that  he  had 
no  patience  with  Loups  or  his  backers.  In- 
deed, the  heresy  threw  him  off  his  stride,  and 
the  next  smash  which  came  during  the  lull  was 
more  significant  than  any  of  the  others.  The 
crash  was  the  peculiarly  disagi-eeable  one 
which  occurs  when  a  large  shell  strikes  a  small 
hardware  store.  Even  the  guide  noticed  this 
shell.    It  reminded  him  of  the  war. 

"Since  April,"  he  said,  "the  Germans  have 
been  bombarding  Rheims  with  naval  guns. 
All  the  shells  which  they  fire  now  are  .320  or 
larger.  They  fire  about  150  shells  a  day  at 
the  city,  mostly  in  the  afternoon,  and  they 
usually  aim  at  the  cathedral  or  some  place  near 

V" 

The  young  man  noted  by  his  watch  that  it 
was  just  half -past  one. 

179 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

"A  week  ago  the  Germans  fired  a  .320  shell 
through  the  roof,  but  it  did  not  explode.  I 
will  show  it  to  you,  but  first  I  must  ask  you 
to  touch  nothing,  not  even  a  piece  of  glass,  for 
we  want  to  put  everything  back  again  that  we 
can  after  the  war." 

On  the  floor  there  was  evidence  that  some 
patient  hand  had  made  a  beginning  of  seeking 
to  fit  together  in  proper  sequence  all  the  avail- 
able tiny  glass  fragments  from  the  shattered 
rose  windows.  It  was  a  pitiful  jigsaw  puzzle, 
which  would  not  work.  The  curator  stepped 
briskly  up  the  nave,  and  at  the  end  of  a  hun- 
dred paces  he  stopped. 

"This  is  the  most  dangerous  portion  of  the 
cathedral,"  he  explained.  "Most  of  the  big 
shells  have  come  in  here."  And  he  pointed  to 
three  great  holes  in  the  ceiling.  Then  he 
showed  us  the  monstrous  shell  which  had  not 
exploded  and  the  fragments  of  others  which 
had.  Down  toward  the  west  end  of  town  fresh 
fragments  were  being  made.  Each  hole  in  the 
cathedral  roof  sounded  a  different  note  as  the 
shells  raced  overhead.  But  the  old  curator  was 
musing  again.    He  had  forgotten  the  war,  even 

180 


WE  VISIT  THE  FRENCH  ARMY 

though  the  smashed  and  twisted  bits  of  iron 
and  stone  from  yesterday's  clean  hit  lay  at  his 
feet. 

"The  first  stone  of  the  present  cathedral 
was  laid  in  May,  1212,  by  the  Archbishop  Al- 
beric  de  Humbert,"  he  said.  "Alberic  gave  all 
the  money  he  could  gather  and  the  chapter 
presented  its  treasury,  and  all  about  the  clergy 
appealed  for  funds  in  the  name  of  God. 
Kings  of  France  and  mighty  lords  made  con- 
tributions, and  each  year  there  was  a  great  pil- 
grimage, headed  by  the  image  of  the  Blessed 
Virgin,  through  all  the  villages.  And  the 
building  grew  and  sculptors  from  all  parts  of 
France  came  and  embellished  it  and  in  1430 
it  was  finished.  You  see,  gentlemen,"  he  said, 
"it  took  more  than  two  hundred  years  to  build 
our  cathedral." 

We  left  the  cathedral  then  and  paused  for  a 
minute  in  the  square  before  the  statue  of 
Jeanne  d'Arc,  who  brought  her  king  to 
Rheims  and  had  him  crowned.  In  some  parts 
of  France  devout  persons  speak  of  the  Jeanne 
statue  in  Rheims  as  a  miracle  because,  al- 
though the  cathedral  has  been  scarred  and  shat- 

181 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

tered  and  every  building  round  the  square 
badly  damaged,  the  statue  of  Jeanne  is  un- 
touched. I  looked  closely  and  found  the 
miracle  was  not  perfect.  A  tiny  bit  of  the 
scabbard  of  Jeanne  had  been  snipped  off  by  a 
flying  shrapnel  fragment,  but  the  sword  of 
Jeanne,  which  is  raised  high  above  her  head, 
has  not  a  nick  in  it. 

Crossing  the  square  we  went  into  the  office 
of  Li'Eclaireur  de  VEst.  This  daily  news- 
paper has  no  humorous  column,  no  editori- 
als, no  sporting  page  and  no  dramatic  re- 
views, and  yet  is  probably  the  most  difficult 
journal  in  the  world  to  edit.  The  chief  repor- 
torial  task  of  the  staff  of  UEclaireur  is  to 
count  the  number  of  shells  which  fall  into  the 
city  each  day.  That  doesn't  sound  hard.  The 
reporter  can  hear  them  all  from  his  desk  and 
many  he  can  see,  for  the  cathedral  just  across 
the  street  is  still  the  favorite  target  of  the  Ger- 
mans. Sometimes  the  reporter  does  not  have 
to  look  so  far.  The  office  of  L'Eclaireur  has 
been  hit  eleven  times  during  the  bombardment 
and  three  members  of  the  staff  have  been 
killed.     One  big  shell  fell  in  the  composing 

182 


WE  VISIT  THE  FRENCH  ARMY 

room  and  so  now  the  paper  is  set  by  hand.  It 
is  a  single  sheet  and  the  circulation  is  limited 
to  the  three  or  four  thousand  civilians,  who 
have  stuck  to  Rheims  throughout  the  bom- 
bardment. One  of  the  few  who  remain  is  a 
man  who  keeps  a  picture  postcard  shop  in  a 
building  next  door  to  the  newspaper  office. 
His  roof  has  been  knocked  down  about  his 
head  and  his  business  is  hardly  thriving.  I 
asked  him  why  he  remained. 

"I  started  to  go  away  several  months  ago 
after  one  day  when  they  put  some  gas  shells 
into  the  town,"  he  said.  "The  very  next  morn- 
ing I  put  all  my  things  into  a  cart  and  started 
up  that  street  there.  I  had  gone  just  about  to 
the  third  street  when  a  shell  hit  the  house  be- 
hind me.  It  killed  my  horse  and  wrecked  the 
wagon  and  so  I  picked  up  my  things  and  came 
back.  It  seemed  to  me  I  wasn't  meant  to  go 
away  from  Rheims." 

The  shelling  increased  in  violence  before  we 
left  the  office  of  JL'Eclaireur.  One  shell  was 
certainly  not  more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty 
yards  away,  but  the  work  went  on  without  in- 
terruption.   The  printers  who  were  setting  ads 

183 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

never  looked  up.  Mostly  these  advertisements 
were  of  houses  in  Rheims  which  were  renting 
lower  than  ever  before.  If  there  was  anyone 
in  the  visiting  party  who  felt  uncomfortable  he 
was  unwilling  to  show  it,  for  just  outside  the 
door  of  the  newspaper  office  there  sat  an  old 
lady  with  a  lapful  of  fancy  work.  A  shell 
came  from  over  the  hills  and,  in  the  seconds 
while  it  whistled  and  then  smashed,  the  old  lady 
threaded  her  needle. 

A  day  later,  when  some  of  us  were  willing  to 
confess  that  of  all  miserable  sounds  the  whis- 
tling of  a  shell  was  the  meanest,  we  found  a 
curious  kink  in  the  brain  of  everyone.  It  was 
the  universal  experience  that  the  slightest  bit 
of  cover,  however  inadequate,  gave  a  sense  of 
safety  out  of  all  proportion  to  its  utility. 
Thus  we  all  felt  much  more  uncomfortable  in 
the  square  than  when  we  stood  in  the  compos- 
ing room  of  the  newspaper  which  was  shielded 
by  the  remains  of  a  glass  skylight.  The  same 
curious  psychological  twist  can  be  found 
among  soldiers  at  the  front.  Again  and  again 
men  will  be  found  taking  apparent  comfort  in 

184 


WE  VISIT  THE  FRENCH  ARMY 

the  fact  that  half  an  inch  of  tin  roof  protects 
them  from  the  shells  of  the  Germans. 

One  is  always  taken  from  the  cathedral  of 
Rheims  to  the  wine  cellars.  The  children  of 
darkness  are  invariably  wiser  than  the  chil- 
dren of  light  and  the  champagne  merchants 
have  not  suffered  as  the  churchmen  have. 
Their  business  places  have  been  knocked 
about  their  heads,  but  their  treasures  are  un- 
derground deep  enough  to  defy  the  biggest 
shells.  In  the  cellar  of  a  single  company  which 
we  visited  there  were  12,000,000  quarts  of 
wine.  Even  the  German  invasion  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  war  failed  to  deplete  this  stock. 
Hundreds  of  people  live  in  these  cellars,  which 
are  laid  out  in  avenues  and  streets.  We  came 
first  to  New  York,  a  street  with  tier  upon  tier 
of  wine  bottles ;  then  to  Boston,  then  to  Buenos 
Ayres,  then  to  Montreal.  One  of  the  visitors 
explained  that  the  street  named  New  York 
contained  the  wine  destined  to  be  shipped  to 
that  city,  wliile  Buenos  Ayres  contained  the 
consignment  for  the  Argentine  capital,  and  so 
on.    We  nodded  acceptance  of  the  theory,  but 

185 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

[the  next  wine-laden  street  was  called  Carnot 
and  the  next  was  Jeanne  d'Arc. 

From  the  cellars  we  made  a  journey  to  a 
battery  of  French  ,75's.  It  was  a  peaceful  mili- 
tary station,  for  so  well  were  the  guns  con- 
cealed that  they  seemed  exempt  from  German 
fire,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  they  had  been  in 
place  for  half  a  year.  The  men  sat  about  un- 
derground playing  cards  and  reading  news- 
papers, but  the  commander  of  the  battery  was 
unwilling  that  we  should  go  with  such  a  peace- 
ful impression  of  his  guns.  He  brought  his 
men  to  action  with  a  word  or  two  and  sent  six 
shells  sailing  at  the  German  first  line  trenches 
for  our  benefit.  We  left,  half  deafened,  but 
delighted. 

No  child  could  be  more  eager  to  show  a  toy 
than  is  a  French  officer  to  let  a  visitor  see  in 
some  small  fashion  how  the  war  wags.  We 
went  from  the  battery  to  a  first  line  trench.  It 
was  slow  work  down  miles  and  miles  of  camou- 
flaged road  to  the  communicating  trench,  and 
all  along  the  line  we  were  stopped  by  kindly 
Frenchmen,  who  wanted  us  to  see  how  their 
dugouts  were  decorated  or  the  nature  of  their 

186 


WE  VISIT  THE  FRENCH  ARMY 

dining  room  or  the  first  aid  dressing  station  or 
any  little  detail  of  the  war  with  which  thej^ 
were  directly  concerned.  JMuch  can  be  done 
with  a  dugout  when  a  few  back  numbers  of  La 
Vie  Parisienne  are  available.  Still,  this  scheme 
of  decoration  may  be  carried  too  far.  I  will 
never  forget  the  face  of  a  Y.  JM.  C.  A.  man 
who  joined  us  at  a  French  officers'  mess  one 
day.  It  was  a  low  ceilinged  room,  with  pine 
walls,  but  not  an  inch  of  wall  was  visible,  for 
a  complete  papering  of  La  Vie  Parisienne  pic- 
tures had  been  provided.  Among  the  ladies 
thus  drafted  for  decorative  purposes  there  was 
perhaps  chiffon  enough  to  make  a  single  arm 
brassard. 

Trenches,  save  in  the  very  active  sectors, 
give  the  visitor  a  sense  of  security.  Open 
places  are  the  ones  which  try  the  nerves  of 
civilians,  and  it  was  pleasant  to  walk  with  a 
wall  of  earth  on  either  hand,  even  if  some  of 
us  did  have  to  stoop  a  bit.  From  the  point 
where  we  entered  the  communication  trench  to 
the  front  line  was  probably  not  more  than  half 
a  mile  as  the  crow  flies — if,  indeed,  he  is  foolish 
enough  to  travel  over  trenches — but  the  sunken 

187 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

pathway  turned  and  twisted  to  such  an  extent 
that  it  must  have  been  two  miles  before  we 
struck  even  the  third  hne.  Here  we  were  held 
while  ever  so  many  dugouts  and  kitchens  and 
gas  alarm  stations  and  telephones  were  ex- 
hibited for  us.  They  were  all  included  in  the 
routine  of  war,  but  of  a  sudden  romance 
popped  up  from  underground.  The  conduct- 
ing officer  paused  at  the  entrance  of  a  passage. 
"Another  dugout"  we  thought. 

"Bring  them  up!"  said  the  officer  to  a  sol- 
dier, and  the  poilu  scrambled  down  the  steps 
and  came  up  with  a  bird  cage  containing  two 
birds. 

"These  are  the  last  resort,"  explained  the  of- 
ficer. "We  send  messages  from  the  trenches 
by  telephone,  if  we  can.  If  the  wires  are  de- 
stroyed we  use  flashes  from  a  light,  but  if  that 
station  is  also  broken  and  we  must  have  help 
the  birds  are  freed." 

Neither  pigeon  seemed  in  the  least  puffed 
up  over  the  responsibility  which  rested  upon 
him. 

The  German  trenches  were  just  400  yards 
away  from  the  first  lines  of  the  French.     It 

188 


WE  VISIT  THE  FRENCH  ARMY 

was  possible  to  see  them  by  peering  over  the 
rim  of  the  trench,  but  we  quickly  ducked  down 
again.  Presently  we  grew  less  cautious,  and 
one  or  two  tried  to  stare  the  Germans  out  of 
countenance.  If  they  could  see  that  strangers 
were  peeping  at  them  they  paid  no  atten- 
tion. 

The  French  officer  in  charge  seemed  embar- 
rassed. He  explained  that  it  was  an  excep- 
tionally quiet  day.  Only  the  day  before  the 
Germans  had  been  active  with  trench  mortars, 
and  he  couldn't  understand  why  they  were 
sulking  now.  Possibly  the  bombardment  from 
the  French  .75's,  which  had  been  going  on  all 
day,  had  softened  them  a  bit.  He  looked  about 
the  trench  dejectedly.  The  soldiers  of  the 
front  line  were  playing  cards,  eating  soup  or 
modeling  little  grotesque  figures  out  of  the 
soft  rock  which  lined  the  walls  of  the  trenches. 
He  called  sharply  to  a  soldier,  who  fetched  a 
box  of  rifle  grenades  out  of  a  cubbyhole  and 
sent  half  a  dozen,  one  after  the  other,  spinning 
at  the  German  lines.  Probably  they  fell  short, 
or  perhaps  the  Germans  were  simply  sullen. 
At  any  rate,  they  paid  no  attention.     They 

189 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

were  not  disposed  into  being  prodded  to  show 
off  for  American  visitors. 

The  officer  suddenly  thought  up  a  method 
to  retrieve  the  lost  reputation  of  his  trench.  If 
we  could  only  stay  until  dark  he  would  send  us 
all  out  on  a  patroling  party  right  up  to  the 
wire  in  front  of  the  German  first  line.  We  de- 
clined, and  made  some  little  haste  to  leave  this 
ever  so  obliging  officer.  In  another  moment 
we  feared  he  would  organize  an  exhibition  of- 
fensive for  our  benefit  and  reserve  us  places  in 
the  first  wave. 

If  things  were  quiet  on  the  ground  there  was 
plenty  of  activity  aloft.  It  was  a  clear  day, 
and  both  sides  had  big  sausage  balloons  up  for 
observation.  Once  a  German  plane  tried  to 
attack  a  French  sausage,  but  it  was  driven  off, 
and  all  day  long  the  Germans  sought  without 
success  to  wing  the  balloon  with  one  of  their 
long  range  guns.  In  that  particular  sector  on 
that  particular  day  the  French  unquestionably 
had  the  mastery  of  the  air.  We  saw  four  of 
their  'planes  in  the  air  to  every  one  German, 
and  once  a  fleet  of  five  cruised  over  the  Ger- 
man lines.     The  Boche  opened  on  them  with 

190 


iWE  VISIT  THE  FRENCH  ARMY 

shrapnel.  It  was  a  clear  day,  without  a 
breath  of  wind,  and  the  white  puffs  clung  to 
the  sky  at  the  point  where  they  broke.  Pres- 
ently the  French  planes  swooped  much  lower, 
and  the  Germans  opened  on  them  with  ma- 
chine guns.  Somebody  has  said  that  machine 
gun  fire  sounds  as  if  a  crazy  carpenter  was 
shingling  a  roof,  and  somebody  else  has  com- 
pared the  noise  to  a  typewriter  being  operated 
in  an  upper  room,  but  it  is  still  more  like  a 
riveting  machine.  It  has  a  business-like,  me- 
thodical sound  to  me.  To  my  ear  there  is  no 
malice  in  a  machine  gun,  but  then  I  have  never 
heard  it  from  an  aeroplane. 

The  officer  in  charge  accompanied  us  to  the 
end  of  the  communicating  trench. 

"Where  are  you  going?"  he  asked. 

We  told  him  that  we  were  going  directly  to 
Paris. 

*'Have  a  good  time,"  he  said,  "but  leave  one 
dinner  and  one  drink  for  me." 

"You  are  going  to  Paris?"  we  asked. 

He  looked  over  toward  the  German  wire 
and  smiled  a  little.    "I  may,"  he  said. 


CHAPTER  XV 

VERDUN 

From  the  hills  around  Verdun  we  saw  the 
earth  as  it  must  have  looked  on  perhaps  the 
fourth  day  of  creation  week.  It  was  all  frowsy 
mud  and  slime.  Man  was  down  deep  in  the 
dust  from  which  he  will  spring  again  some 
day.  There  was  not  even  a  foothold  for  pop- 
pies on  the  hills  around  Verdun,  for  mingled 
with  the  old  earth  scars  were  fresh  ones,  and 
there  will  be  more  tomorrow. 

The  Germans  have  been  pushed  back  of  the 
edges  of  the  bowl  in  which  Verdun  lies,  and 
now  theu*  only  eyes  are  aeroplanes.  Big  naval 
guns  are  required  to  reach  the  city  itself,  but 
the  Germans  are  not  content  to  leave  the  bat- 
tered town  alone.  They  bang  away  at  ruins 
and  kick  a  city  which  is  down.  They  fire,  too, 
at  the  citadel,  but  do  no  more  than  scratch  the 
top  of  this  great  underground  fortress. 

Our  guide  and  mentor  at  Verdun  was  a  dis- 
192 


VERDUN 

tingnished  colonel,  very  learned  in  military 
tactics  and  familiar  with  every  phase  of  the 
various  Verdun  campaigns.  The  extent  of  his 
information  was  borne  home  to  us  the  first  day 
of  the  trip,  for  he  stood  the  party  on  top  of 
Fort  Souville  and  carried  on  a  technical  talk  in 
French  for  more  than  half  an  hour,  while  Ger- 
man shells,  breaking  a  few  hundred  yards 
away,  sought  in  vain  to  interrupt  him. 

From  the  top  of  Souville  it  was  possible  to 
see  gun  flashes  and  to  spy,  now  and  again, 
aeroplanes  which  darted  back  and  forth  all 
day,  but  not  a  soldier  of  either  side  was  to  be 
seen  through  the  strongest  glasses.  On  no 
front  have  men  dug  in  so  deeply  as  at  Verdun. 
They  have  good  reason  to  snuggle  into  the 
earth,  for  the  French  have  a  story  that  one 
of  their  projectiles  killed  men  in  a  dugout 
seventy-five  feet  below  the  surface.  They 
thought  that  this  terrific  penetration  must  have 
been  due  to  the  fact  that  the  shell  hit  fairly 
upon  a  crack  in  the  concrete  and  wedged  its 
way  through. 

Barring  plumbing,  which  is  always  an  after 
thought  in  France,  the  French  make  the  un- 

193 


THE  A.  E,  F. 

derground  dwellings  of  the  soldiers  moder- 
ately comfortable.  There  are  ventilating 
plants  and  electric  lights,  and  in  the  citadel 
a  motion  picture  theater.  In  one  under- 
ground stronghold  we  found  the  telephone 
central  for  all  the  various  positions  around 
Verdun.  We  wondered  whether  or  not  he  was 
ever  obliged  to  report,  "Your  party  doesn't 
answer." 

We  traveled  far  underground,  and  at  last 
the  colonel  brought  us  out  again  near  the  high, 
bare  spot  where  the  automobiles  had  been  left. 
As  we  walked  down  the  road  there  was  a  par- 
ticularly vicious  bang  some  place  to  our  left. 

"That  wasn't  very  far  away,"  said  the 
colonel. 

This  was  the  first  shell  which  had  stirred  him 
to  interest  or  attention.  Presently  there  came 
another  bang,  and  this  seemed  just  as  loud. 
The  colonel  paused  thoughtfully. 

"Maybe  one  of  their  aeroplanes  has  seen  us 
and  spotted  us  for  the  artillery,"  he  said.  "Tell 
the  chauffeurs  to  turn  the  cars  around  at  once, 
and  we'll  go." 

The  chauffeurs  turned  the  cars  with  com- 
194 


VERDUN 

mendable  alacrity  and  the  colonel  walked 
slowly  toward  them.  But  his  roving  glance 
rested  for  an  instant  upon  a  little  ridge  across 
the  valley  to  his  left  which  brought  memories 
to  his  mind  and  he  stopped  in  the  middle  of  the 

road  and  began:  "In  the  Spring  of  1915 " 

On  and  on  he  went  in  his  beautiful  French 
and  described  some  small  affair  which  might 
have  influenced  the  entire  subsequent  course 
of  events.  It  seemed  that  if  the  Germans  had 
varied  their  plan  a  little  the  French  defensive 
scheme  would  have  been  upset  and  all  sorts 
of  things  would  have  happened.  At  the  end 
of  twenty  minutes  he  had  done  full  justice  to 
the  subject  and  then  he  recollected. 

"We'd  better  go  now,"  he  said,  "the  Ger- 
mans may  have  spotted  us." 

We  messed  with  the  French  officers  in  the 
citadel  that  night  and  found  that  they  were 
ready  to  converse  on  almost  any  subject  but 
the  war.  Literature  was  their  favorite  topic. 
Although  the  colonel  spoke  no  English,  he  was 
familiar  with  much  American  literature  in 
translation.  Poe  he  knew  well,  and  he  had 
read  a  few  things  of  JNIark  Twain's.     Some- 

195 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

body  mentioned  William  James,  and  a  captain 
quoted  at  length  from  an  essay  called  "A 
Moral  Equivalent  for  War."  The  lieutenant 
on  my  right  wanted  to  know  whether  Amer- 
icans still  read  Walt  Whitman,  and  I  won- 
dered whether  the  same  familiarity  with 
French  literature  would  be  encountered  in  any 
American  mess.  This  little  lieutenant  had 
been  a  professor  or  instructor  some  place  or 
other  when  the  war  began  and  had  several 
poetical  dramas  in  verse  to  his  credit.  He  had 
written  a  play  called  "Dionysius"  in  rhymed 
couplets.  At  the  beginning  of  the  war  he  had 
enlisted  as  a  private  and  had  seen  much  hard 
service,  which  had  brought  him  two  wounds,  a 
medal  and  a  commission.  He  hoped  ardently 
to  survive  the  war,  for  he  felt  that  he  could 
write  ever  so  much  better  because  he  had  been 
thrown  into  close  relationship  with  peasants 
and  laborers.  He  found  their  talk  meaty,  and 
at  times  rich  in  poetry.  One  day,  he  remem- 
bered, his  regiment  had  marched  along  a  coun- 
try road  in  a  fine  spring  dawn.  His  comrade 
to  the  right,  a  Parisian  peddler,  remarked  as 
they  passed  a  gleaming  forest:     "There  is  a 

196 


VERDUN 

wood  where  God  has  slept."  The  little  lieu- 
tenant said  that  if  he  had  the  luck  to  live 
through  the  war  he  was  going  to  write  plaj^s 
without  a  thought  of  the  Greeks  and  their 
mythology.  He  hoped,  if  he  should  live,  to 
write  for  the  many  as  well  as  the  few.  I  won- 
dered to  myself  just  what  sort  of  plays  one  of 
our  American  highbrows  would  write  if  he 
served  a  campaign  with  the  69th  or  drove  an 
army  mule. 

The  French  army  tries  to  let  the  men  at  the 
front  live  a  little  better  than  elsewhere  if  it  is 
possible  to  get  the  food  up  to  them.  In  the 
citadel  at  Verdun  the  men  dine  in  style  now 
that  the  incoming  roads  are  pretty  much  im- 
mune from  shell  fire.  Our  luncheon  with  the 
officers  on  the  night  of  the  twenty-fifth  of  Sep- 
tember, for  instance,  consisted  of  hors 
d'oeuvres,  omelette  aux  fines  herbes,  bifsteck, 
pommes  parmentier,  confitures,  dessert,  cafe, 
champagne  and  pinard.  And  for  dinner  we 
had  potage  vermicelli,  ceufs  bechamel,  jambon 
aux  epinards,  chouxfleur  au  jus,  duchesse 
chocolat,  fruits,  dessert,  cafe  and,  of  course, 
champagne  and  pinard. 

197 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

We  spent  the  night  in  the  citadel  and  a  little 
after  midnight  the  German  planes  came  over. 
They  bombed  the  town  and  dropped  a  few  mis- 
siles on  the  citadel,  but  they  did  no  more  than 
dent  the  roof  a  bit.  Our  rooms  were  almost 
fifty  meters  underground  and  the  bombs 
sounded  little  louder  than  heavy  rain  on  the 
roof.  Certainly  they  did  not  disturb  the 
Frenchman  just  down  the  hall.  His  snores 
were  ever  so  much  louder  than  the  German 
bombs. 

On  the  morning  of  our  second  day  we 
crossed  the  Meuse  and  drove  down  heavily 
camouflaged  roads  to  Charny.  Five  hundred 
yards  away  a  French  battery  was  under  heavy 
bombardment  from  big  German  guns.  We 
could  see  the  earth  fly  up  from  hits  close  to  the 
gun  emplacements.  Five  hundred  yards  away 
men  were  being  killed  and  wounded,  but  the 
soldiers  in  Charny  loafed  about  and  smoked 
and  chatted  and  paid  no  attention.  This  bom- 
bardment was  not  in  their  lives  at  all.  The 
men  of  the  battery  might  have  been  the  folk 
who  walk  upside  down  on  the  other  side  of  the 
earth. 

198 


VERDUN 

"The  last  time  I  came  to  Charny,"  said  the 
Colonel,  "I  had  to  get  in  a  dugout  and  stay 
five  hours  because  the  Germans  bombarded  it 
so  hard. 

"But  that  was  in  the  afternoon,"  he  reas- 
sured us;  "the  Germans  never  bombard 
Charny  in  the  morning." 

We  stood  and  watched  the  two  sheets  of 
fire  poured  upon  the  battery  until  somebody 
called  attention  to  the  fact  that  it  was  almost 
noon  and  we  returned  to  the  citadel.  And  at 
two  o'clock  that  afternoon  we  stood  on  a  hill- 
top overlooking  the  valley  and  sure  enough  the 
Germans  were  giving  Charny  its  daily  strafe. 
Shells  were  bursting  all  around  the  peaceful 
road  we  had  traveled  in  the  morning.  Prob- 
ablj'-  by  now  the  men  in  the  battery  were  idling 
about  and  taking  their  ease.  After  all  there  is 
something  to  be  said  for  a  foe  who  plays  a 
system* 


CHAPTER  XVI 

WE  VISIT  THE  BRITISH  ARMY 

He  was  twenty-six  and  a  major,  but  he  was 
three  years  old  in  the  big  war,  and  that  is  the 
only  age  which  counts  today  in  the  British 
army.  The  little  major  was  the  first  man  I 
ever  met  who  professed  a  genuine  enthusiasm 
for  war.  It  had  found  him  a  black  sheep  in 
the  most  remote  region  of  a  big  British  colony 
and  had  tossed  him  into  command  of  himself 
and  of  others.  Utterly  useless  in  the  pursuit 
of  peace,  war  had  proved  a  sufficiently  com- 
pelling schoolmaster  to  induce  the  study  of 
many  complicated  mechanical  problems,  of 
subtler  ones  of  psychology,  not  to  mention  two 
languages.  It  is  true  that  his  German  was 
limited  to  "Throw  up  your  hands"  and  "Come 
out  or  we'll  bomb  you,"  but  he  could  carry  on 
a  friendly  and  fairly  extensive  conversation  in 
French.     The  tuition  fee  was  two  wounds. 

200 


WE  VISIT  THE  BRITISH  ARMY 

He  was  a  fine,  fair  sample  of  the  slashing, 
swanking  British  army  which  backs  its  boasts 
with  battalions  and  makes  its  light  words  good 
with  heavy  guns.  We  rode  together  in  a  train 
for  several  hours  on  the  way  to  the  British 
front  and  when  I  told  him  I  was  a  newspaper 
man  he  was  eager  to  tell  me  something  of  what 
the  British  army  had  done,  was  doing  and 
would  do. 

"If  they'd  cut  out  wire  and  trenches  and  ma- 
chine guns  and  general  staffs,"  said  the  little 
major,  "we'd  win  in  two  months."  Without 
these  concessions  he  did  not  expect  to  see  the 
end  for  at  least  a  year.  However,  he  was  con- 
cerned for  the  most  part  with  more  concrete 
things  than  predictions,  and  I'd  best  let  him 
wander  on  as  he  did  that  afternoon  with  no 
interruption  save  an  occasional  question.  He 
was  returning  to  the  front  after  being 
wounded.  There  had  been  boating  and  swim- 
ming and  tennis  and  "a  deuced  pretty  girl" 
down  there  at  the  resort  where  he  had  been  re- 
cuperating, and  yet  he  was  glad  to  be  back. 

"You  see,"  the  little  major  explained,  "I 
have  been  in  all  the  shows  from  the  beginning 

201 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

and  I'd  feel  pretty  rotten  if  they  were  to  pull 
anything  off  without  me.  The  CO.  wants  me 
back.  I  have  a  letter  here  from  him.  He  tells 
me  to  take  all  the  time  I  need,  but  to  get  back 
as  soon  as  I  can.  The  CO.  and  I  have  been 
together  from  the  beginning.  It  isn't  that  the 
new  fellow  isn't  all  right.  Quite  likely  he's  a 
better  officer  than  I  am,  but  the  CO.  wants 
the  old  fellows  that  he's  seen  in  other  shows 
and  knows  all  about.  That's  why  I  want  to 
get  back.  I  want  to  see  what  the  new  fellow's 
doing  with  my  men." 

He  limj)ed  a  little  still,  and  I  pressed  him 
to  tell  me  about  his  wound.  It  seemed  he  got 
it  in  "the  April  show." 

"There  was  a  bit  of  luck  about  that,"  he 
said.  "I  happened  to  take  my  Webley  with  me 
when  we  went  over,  as  well  as  my  cane. 
They've  got  a  silly  rule  now  that  officers 
mustn't  carry  canes  in  an  attack  and  that  they 
must  wear  Tommies'  tunics,  so  the  Fritzies 
can't  spot  them.  They  say  we  lose  too  many 
officers  because  they  expose  themselves.  No- 
body pa^^s  much  attention  to  that  rule.  You 
won't  find  many  officers  in  Tommies'  tunics, 

202 


WE  VISIT  THE  BRITISH  ARMY 

but  you  will  find  'em  out  in  front  with  their 
canes. 

"And  there's  sense  to  it.  I've  always  said 
that  I  wouldn't  ask  my  men  to  go  any  place  I 
wasn't  willing  to  go  and  to  go  first.  'Come 
on,'  that's  what  we  say  in  the  British  army. 
The  Germans  drive  their  men  from  behind. 
Some  of  their  ofhcers  are  very  brave,  you 
know,  but  that's  the  system.  I  remember  in 
one  show  we  were  stuck  at  the  third  line  of 
barbed  wire.  The  guns  hadn't  touched  it,  but 
it  wasn't  their  fault.  There  was  a  German  of- 
ficer there,  and  he  stood  up  on  the  parapet,  and 
directed  the  machine  gun  fire.  He'd  point 
every  place  we  were  a  little  thick  and  then 
they'd  let  us  have  it.  We  got  him,  though.  I 
got  a  machine  gunner  on  him.  Just  peppered, 
him.    He  was  a  mighty  brave  officer." 

I  reminded  the  little  major  that  I  wanted  to 
hear  about  his  wound. 

"We  were  coming  through  a  German  trench 
that  had  been  pretty  well  cleaned  out,  but  close 
up  against  the  back  there  was  a  soldier  hiding. 
When  I  came  b}^  he  cut  at  me  with  his  bay- 
onet.   He  onl}^  got  me  in  the  fleshy  part  of  my 

203 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

leg,  and  I  turned  and  let  him  have  it  with  my; 
Webley.  Blew  the  top  of  his  head  right  off. 
Silly  ass,  wasn't  he?  Must  have  known  he'd 
be  killed." 

I  asked  him  if  his  wound  hurt,  and  he  said 
no,  and  that  he  was  able  to  walk  back,  and 
felt  quite  chipper  until  the  last  mile. 

"The  first  thing  a  wounded  man  wants  to 
do,"  he  explained,  "is  to  get  away.  If  he's 
been  hit  he  gets  a  sudden  crazy  fear  that  he's 
going  to  get  it  again.  JVIost  wounds  don't  hurt 
much,  and  as  soon  as  a  man's  out  of  fire  and 
puts  a  cigarette  in  his  mouth  he  cheers  up. 
He's  at  his  best  if  it's  a  blighty  hit." 

Here  I  was  forced  to  interrupt  for  informa- 
tion. 

"A  blighty  hit!  Don't  you  know  what  that 
is?  It's  from  the  song  they  sing  now,  'Carry 
Me  Back  to  Blighty.'  Blighty's  England.  I 
think  it's  a  Hindustani  word  that  means  home, 
but  I  won't  be  sure  about  that.  Anyhow,  a 
blighty  hit's  not  bad  enough  to  keep  you  in 
France,  but  bad  enough  to  send  you  to  Eng- 
land. Those  are  the  slow  injuries  that  aren't 
so  very  dangerous. 

204 


WE  VISIT  THE  BRITISH  ARMY 

"Next  to  getting  to  Blighty  a  fellow  wants 
a  cigarette.  I  never  saw  a  man  hit  so  bad  he 
couldn't  smoke.  I  saw  a  British  'plane  com- 
ing down  one  day  and  the  tail  of  it  was  red. 
The  Germans  fix  up  their  machines  like  that, 
but  I  knew  this  wasn't  paint  on  a  British  plane. 
He  made  a  tiptop  landing,  and  when  he  got 
out  we  saw  part  of  his  shoulder  was  shot  away 
and  he  had  a  hole  in  the  top  of  his  head.  'That 
was  a  close  call,'  he  said,  and  he  took  out  a 
cigarette,  lighted  it  and  took  two  puffs.  Then 
he  keeled  over." 

The  little  major  and  I  got  out  to  stretch 
our  legs  at  a  station  platform,  and  I  noticed 
that  salutes  were  punctiliously  given  and  re- 
turned. "I  suppose,"  I  said,  quoting  a  bit  of 
misinformation  somebody  had  supplied,  "that 
out  at  the  front  all  this  saluting  is  cut  out." 

"No,  sir,"  said  the  little  major  sternly. 
"Somebody  told  that  to  the  last  batch  of  re- 
cruits that  was  sent  over,  but  we  taught  'em 
better  soon.  They  don't  get  the  lay  of  it  quite. 
It  isn't  me  they  salute;  it's  the  King's  uni- 
form. Of  course,  I  don't  expect  a  man  to 
salute  if  I  pass  him  in  a  trench;  but  if  he's 

205 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

smoking  a  cigarette  I  expect  him  to  throw  it 
away  and  I  expect  him  to  straighten  up. 

"You've  got  to  let  up  on  some  things,  of 
course.  There's  shaving  now.  I  expect  my 
men  to  shave  every  day  when  they're  not  in 
the  line,  but  you  can't  expect  that  in  the 
trenches.  Naturally,  I  shave  myself  every  day 
anyhow,  but  I'm  lenient  with  the  men.  I  don't 
insist  on  their  shaving  more  than  every  other 
day." 

When  I  got  to  the  chateau  where  the  visit- 
ing correspondents  stay  I  found  the  officers  at 
mess.  There  were  four  British  officers,  a  Rou- 
manian general,  a  member  of  Parliament,  a 
Dutch  painter  and  an  American  newspaper- 
man. As  at  Verdun  the  conversation  had 
swung  around  to  literature.  It  all  began  be- 
cause somebody  said  something  about  Shaw 
having  put  up  at  the  chateau  when  he  visited 
the  front. 

"Awful  ass,"  said  an  English  officer  who  had 
met  the  playwright  out  there.  "He  was  no 
end  of  nuisance  for  us.  Why,  when  he  got 
out  here  we  found  he  was  a  vegetarian,  and  we 

206 


WE  VISIT  THE  BRITISH  ARMY 

had  to  chase  around  and  have  omelettes  fixed 
up  for  him  every  day." 

"I  censored  his  stuff,"  said  another.  "I 
didn't  think  much  of  it,  but  I  made  almost  no 
changes.  Some  of  it  was  a  little  subtle,  but  I 
let  it  get  by." 

"I  heard  him  out  here,"  said  a  third  officer, 
"and  he  talked  no  end  of  rot.  He  said  the 
Germans  had  made  a  botch  of  destroying 
towns.  He  said  he  could  have  done  more  dam- 
age to  Arras  with  a  hammer  than  the  Germans 
did  with  their  shells.  Of  course,  he  couldn't 
begin  to  do  it  with  a  hammer,  and,  anyway,  he 
wouldn't  be  let.  I  suppose  he  never  thought 
of  that.  Then  he  said  that  the  Germans  were 
doing  us  a  great  favor  by  their  air  raids.  He 
said  they  were  smashing  up  things  that  were 
ugly  and  unsanitary.  That's  silly.  We  could 
pull  them  down  ourselves,  you  know,  and, 
anyhow,  in  the  last  raid  they  hit  the  postof- 
fice." 

"The  old  boy's  got  nerve,  though,"  inter- 
rupted another  officer.  "I  was  out  at  the 
front  with  him  near  Arras  and  there  was  some 
pretty  lively  shelling  going  on  around  us.     I 

207 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

told  him  to  put  on  his  tin  hat,  but  he  wouldn't 
do  it.  I  said,  'Those  German  shell  splinters 
may  get  you,'  and  he  laughed  and  said  if  the 
Germans  did  anything  to  him- they'd  be  mighty 
ungrateful,  after  all  he'd  done  for  them.  He 
don't  know  the  Boche." 

"He  told  me,"  added  a  British  journalist, 
*'  'when  I  want  to  know  about  war  I  talk  to 
soldiers.'  I  asked  him:  'Do  you  mean  officers 
or  Tommies  ?'  He  said  that  he  meant  Tommies. 

"Now  you  know  how  much  reliance  you  can 
put  in  what  a  Tommy  says.  He'll  either  say 
what  he  thinks  you  want  him  to  say  or  what 
he  thinks  you  don't  want  him  to  say.  I  told 
Shaw  that,  but  he  paid  no  attention." 

Here  the  first  officer  chimed  in  again. 
"Well,  I  stick  to  what  I've  said  right  along. 
I  don't  see  where  Shaw's  funny.    I  think  he's 

silly." 

The  major  who  sat  at  the  head  of  the  table 
deftly  turned  the  conversation  away  from  lit- 
erary controversy.  "What  did  you  think  of 
Conan  Doyle?"  he  said. 

Bright  and  early  next  morning  we  started 
2C8 


WE  VISIT  THE  BRITISH  ARMY 

out  to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  Shaw.  We 
went  through  country  which  had  been  shocked 
and  shaken  by  both  sides  in  their  battles  and 
then  dynamited  in  addition  by  the  retreating 
Germans.  I  stood  in  Peronne  which  the  Ger- 
mans had  dynamited  with  the  greatest  care. 
They  left  the  town  for  dead,  but  against  a  shat- 
tered wall  was  a  sign  which  read,  "Regimental 
cinema  tonight  at  the  Splinters — CHARLIE 
CHAPLIN  IN  SHANGHAIED."  This 
was  first  aid.  A  frozen  man  is  rubbed  with 
snow  and  a  town  which  has  suffered  German 
frightfulness  is  regaled  with  Charlie  Chaplin. 
Life  will  come  back  to  that  town  in  time  and 
to  others.  After  all  life  is  a  rubber  band  and 
it  will  be  just  as  it  was  only  an  instant  after 
they  let  go.  We  turned  down  the  road  to 
Arras  and  drove  between  fields  which  had 
been  burned  to  cinders  and  trodden  into  mud 
by  men  and  guns  only  a  few  weeks  ago.  Now 
the  poppies  were  sweeping  all  before  them. 
Into  the  trenches  they  went  and  over.  First 
line,  second  line,  third  line,  each  fell  in  turn 
to  the  redcoats.  They  were  so  thick  that  the 
earth  seemed  to  bleed  for  its  wounds. 

209 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

Presently  we  were  in  Arras  and  our  officer 
led  us  into  the  cathedral.  "We  won't  stay  in 
here  long,"  said  the  officer.  "The  Germans 
drop  a  shell  in  here  every  now  and  then  and 
the  next  one  may  bring  the  rest  of  the  walls 
down.  People  keep  away  from  here."  This 
indeed  seemed  a  very  citadel  of  destruction 
and  loneliness,  but  as  we  turned  to  go  we 
heard  a  mournful  noise  from  an  inner  room. 
We  investigated  and  found  a  Tommy  prac- 
ticing on  the  cornet.  He  was  playing  a  piece 
entitled,  "Progressive  Exercises  for  the  Cor- 
net— Number  One."  He  stood  up  and 
saluted. 

"Have  the  Germans  bombarded  the  town  at 
all  today?"  the  captain  asked. 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  the  Tommy.  "They  bom- 
barded the  square  out  in  front  here  this  morn- 
ing." 

"Did  they  get  anybody?" 

"No,  sir,  only  a  Frenchman,  sir,"  replied  the 
Tommy  with  stiff  formality. 

"Was  there  any  other  activity?" 

"Yes,  sir,  there  were  some  aeroplanes  over 
about  an  hour  ago  and  they  dropped  some 

210 


WE  VISIT  THE  BRITISH  ARMY 

bombs  in  there,"  said  the  Tommy  indicating  a 
street  just  back  of  the  cathedral. 

"And  what  were  we  doing?"  persisted  the 
captain. 

"We  were  trying  out  some  new  anti-aircraft 
ammunition,"  explained  the  Tommy  patiently, 
"but  I  don't  think  it  was  any  good,  sir,  because 
most  of  it  came  down  and  buried  itself  over 
there,"  and  he  indicated  a  spot  some  fifteen  or 
twenty  feet  from  his  music  room. 

The  captain  could  think  of  no  more  in- 
quiries just  then  and  the  soldier  quickly  folded 
up  his  cornet  and  his  music  and  after  saluting 
wuth  decent  haste  left  the  cathedral.  For  the 
sake  of  his  music  he  was  willing  to  endure 
shells  and  bombs  and  shrapnel  fragments  but 
questions  put  him  off  his  stride  entirely.  He 
fled,  perhaps,  to  some  shell  hole  for  solitude. 

From  the  cathedral  we  went  to  the  town 
hall.  Here  again  one  could  not  but  be  im- 
pressed with  the  futility  of  desti'uction.  The 
Germans  have  torn  the  building  cruelly  with 
their  shells  and  their  dynamite,  but  beauty  is 
tough.  Dynamite  a  bakeshop  and  you  have 
only  a  mess.     Shell  a  tailor's  and  rubbish  is 

211 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

left.  But  it  is  different  when  you  begin  to 
turn  your  guns  against  cathedrals  and  town 
halls.  If  a  structure  is  built  beautifully  it  will 
break  beautifully.  The  dynamite  has  cut  fine 
lines  in  the  jagged  ruins  of  the  Town  Hall. 
The  Germans  have  smashed  everything  but 
the  soul  of  the  building.  They  didn't  get  that. 
It  was  not  for  want  of  trying,  but  dynamite 
has  its  limitations. 

We  got  up  to  the  lines  the  next  day  and  had 
a  fine  view  of  the  opposing  trench  systems  for 
ten  or  twelve  miles.  Our  box  seat  was  on  top 
of  a  hill  just  back  of  Messines  ridge.  We  saw 
a  duel  between  two  aeroplanes,  the  explosion 
of  a  munitions  dump,  and  no  end  of  big  gun 
firing  but  the  officer  who  conducted  us  said 
that  it  was  a  dull  morning.  Our  day  on  the 
hill  was  a  clear  one  after  three  days  of  low 
clouds,  and  all  the  fliers  were  out  in  force.  Al- 
most two  dozen  British  'planes  were  to  be  seen 
from  the  hilltop,  as  well  as  several  captive  bal- 
loons. Although  the  English  'planes  flew  well 
over  the  German  lines,  they  drew  no  fire,  but 
presently  the  sky  began  to  grovv  woolly.  Lit- 
tle round  white  patches  appeared,  one  against 

212 


WE  VISIT  THE  BRITISH  ARMY 

the  other,  cutting  the  sky  into  great  flannel 
figures.  Then  we  saw  above  it  all  a  'plane  so 
high  as  to  be  hardly  visible.  Indeed,  we  should 
not  have  seen  it  but  for  the  telltale  shrapnel. 
These  were  our  guns,  and  this  was  no  friend. 
Now  it  was  almost  over  our  heads.  It  seemed 
intent  upon  attacking  one  of  the  British  cap- 
tive balloons,  which  could  only  stand  and  wait. 
The  guns  were  snarling  now.  We  were  close 
enough  to  hear  the  anger  in  every  shot.  The 
shrapnel  broke  behind,  below,  above  and  in 
front  of  the  aeroplane,  but  on  it  sailed,  un- 
touched, like  a  glass  ball  in  a  Buffalo  Bill 
shooting  trick. 

Yet  here  was  no  poor  marksmanship,  for  at 
ten  thousand  feet  the  air  pilot  has  forty  sec- 
onds to  dodge  each  shell.  He  merely  has  to 
watch  the  flash  of  the  gun  and  then  dive  or  rise 
or  slide  to  right  or  left.  Sometimes,  indeed, 
the  shrapnel  lays  a  finger  on  him,  but  he  whirls 
away  out  of  its  grip  like  a  quarterback  in  a 
broken  field.  The  guns  stopped  firing,  al- 
though the  German  was  still  above  the  British 
lines.  Somebody  was  up  to  tackle  him  at 
closer  range.     Where  our  'plane  came  from 

213 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

we  did  not  know.  The  sky  was  filled  all 
morning  with  English  fliers,  but  each  appeared 
to  have  definite  work  in  hand,  and  not  one  paid 
the  slightest  attention  to  the  German  intruder. 
This  was  a  special  assignment.  When  we 
caught  sight  of  the  English  flier  he  had 
maneuvered  into  a  position  behind  his  Ger- 
man adversary.  We  caught  the  flashes  from 
the  machine  guns,  but  we  could  hear  no  sound 
of  the  fight  above  us.  The  'planes  darted  for- 
ward and  back.  They  were  clever  little  ban- 
tams, these,  and  neither  was  able  to  put  in  a 
finishing  blow.  Our  stolid  guiding  ofiicer  was 
up  on  his  toes  now  and  rooting  as  if  it  were 
some  sporting  event  in  progress.  Looking 
upward  at  his  comrade,  ten  thousand  feet  aloft, 
he  cried:    "Let  him  have  it!" 

The  hostile  attitude  of  the  spectators  or 
something  else  discouraged  the  German  and 
he  turned  and  made  for  his  own  lines.  The 
Englishman  pursued  him  for  a  time  and  then 
gave  up  the  chase.  The  consensus  of  opinion 
was  that  the  Briton  had  won  the  decision  on 
points. 

"They've  been  making  a  dead  set  for  our 
214 


WE  VISIT  THE  BRITISH  ARMY 

balloons  all  week,"  said  an  English  soldier 
after  the  German  'plane  had  been  driven  away. 

"If  they  get  the  balloon  does  that  mean  that 
they  get  the  observer?"  I  asked  in  my  igno- 
rance. 

"Lord  bless  you  no,"  said  the  soldier.  "No 
danger  for  'im,  sir.  He  just  jumps  out  with 
a  parachute." 

Next  we  turned  our  attention  to  the  big  gun 
firing.  We  could  see  the  flash  of  the  guns  of 
both  sides  and  hear  the  whistle  of  the  shells. 
After  the  flash  one  might  mark  the  result  if 
he  had  a  sharp  eye.  There  was  no  trouble  in 
following  the  progress  of  one  particular  Brit- 
ish shell  for  an  instant  after  the  flash  a  high 
column  of  smoke  arose  above  a  town  which  the 
Germans  held.  A  minute  or  so  later  we  had 
our  own  column  for  a  German  shell  hit  one 
of  the  many  munition  dumps  scattered  about 
behind  the  British  front.  Our  own  hill  was 
pocked  with  shell  holes  and  the  tower  near 
which  we  stood  was  nibbled  nigh  to  bits  and 
we  had  a  wakeful,  stimulating  feeling  that  al- 
most any  minute  something  might  drop  on  or 

215 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

near  us.  The  Tommy  with  whom  we  shared 
the  view  undeceived  us. 

"This  hill!"  he  said.  "Why  there  was  a 
time  when  it  was  as  much  as  your  life  was 
worth  to  stand  up  here  and  now  the  place's 
nothing  but  a  bloomin'  Cook's  tour  resort." 

Our  last  day  with  the  army  was  spent  at  the 
University  of  Death  and  Destruction  where 
the  men  from  England  take  their  final  courses 
in  warfare.  We  began  with  a  class  which  was 
having  a  lesson  in  defense  against  bombs.  A 
tin  can  exploded  at  the  feet  of  a  Scotchman  and 
peppered  his  bare  legs.  Five  hundred  sol- 
diers roared  with  laughter,  for  the  man  in  the 
kilt  had  flunked  his  recitation  in  "Trench  Raid- 
ing." Officially  the  Scot  was  dead,  for  the  tin 
can  represented  a  German  bomb.  They  were 
cramming  for  war  in  the  big  training  camp 
and  they  played  roughly.  The  imitation 
bombs  carried  a  charge  of  powder  generous 
enough  to  insure  wholesome  respect.  The 
Scot,  indeed,  had  to  retire  to  have  a  dressing 
made. 

The  trench  in  which  the  class  was  hard  at 
work  was  perfect  in  almost  every  detail,  save 

216 


WE  VISIT  THE  BRITISH  ARMY 

that  it  lacked  a  back  wall.  This  was  removed 
for  the  sake  of  the  audience.  An  instructor 
stood  outside  and  every  now  and  again  he 
would  toss  a  bomb  at  his  pupils.  He  played 
no  favorites.  The  good  and  the  bad  scholar 
each  had  his  chance.  In  order  to  pass  the 
course  the  soldier  had  to  show  that  he  knew 
what  to  do  to  meet  the  bomb  attack.  He 
might  take  shelter  in  the  traverse;  he  might 
kick  the  bomb  far  away;  or,  with  a  master's 
degree  in  view,  he  might  pick  up  the  imitation 
bomb  and  hurl  it  far  away  before  it  could  ex- 
plode. Speed  and  steady  nerves  were  re- 
quired for  this  trick.  An  explosion  might  eas- 
ily blow  off  a  finger  or  two.  Yet,  after  all,  it 
was  practice.  Later  there  might  be  other 
bombs  designed  for  bigger  game  than  fingers. 
We  followed  the  students  from  bombs  to 
bayonets.  The  men  with  the  cold  steel  were 
charging  into  dummies  marked  with  circles  to 
represent  spots  where  hits  were  likely  to  be 
vital.  It  looked  for  all  the  world  like  football 
practice  and  the  men  went  after  the  dummies 
as  the  tacklers  used  to  do  at  Soldiers'  Field  of 
an  afternoon  when  the  coach  had  pinned  blue 

217 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

sweaters  and  white  "Y's"  on  the  straw  men. 
There  was  the  same  severely  serious  spirit.   In 
a  larger  field  a  big  class  was  having  instruc- 
tion in  attack.     Before  them  were  three  lines 
of  trenches  protected  by  barbed  wire  ankle 
high.     At  a  signal  they  left  their  trench  and 
darted  forward  to  the  next  one.     Here  they 
paused  for  a  moment  and  then  set  sail  for  the 
second  trench.     At  another  signal  they  were 
out  of  that  and  into  a  third  trench.     From 
here  they  blazed  away  at  some  targets  on  the 
hill  representing   Germans   and  consolidated 
their     positions.     Instructors     followed     the 
charge  along  the  road  which  bordered  the  in- 
struction   field.     They    mingled    praise    and 
blame,  but  ever  they  shouted  for  speed.  "Make 
this  go  now,"  would  be  the  cry,  and  to  a  luck- 
less wight  who  had  been  upset  by  barbed  wire 
and  sent  sprawling:    "What  do  you  mean  by 
lying  there,  anyhow?" 

It  was  a  New  Zealand  company  which  I 
saw,  and  in  the  class  were  a  number  of  Maoris. 
These  were  fine,  husky  men  of  the  type  seen  in 
the  Hawaiian  Islands.  All  played  the  game 
hard,  but  none  seemed  so  imaginatively  stirred 

218 


WE  VISIT  THE  BRITISH  ARMY 

by  it  as  the  Maoris.  They  were  fairly  carried 
away  by  the  enthusiasm  of  a  charge,  and  left 
their  trenches  each  time  shouting  at  top  voice. 
The  capture  of  the  third  trench  by  no  means 
satisfied  them.  They  wanted  to  go  on  and  on. 
If  the  officer  had  not  called  a  halt  there's  no 
telling  but  that  they  might  have  invaded  the 
next  field  and  bayoneted  the  bombardiers. 
Over  the  hill  there  was  a  rattle  of  machine 
guns  and  beyond  that  a  more  scattering  vol- 
ume of  musketry.  We  stopped  and  watched 
the  men  at  their  rifle  practice. 

"You  wouldn't  believe  it,"  said  the  in- 
structor, "but  we've  got  to  keep  hammering  it 
home  to  men  that  rifles  are  meant  to  shoot 
with.  For  a  time  you  heard  nothing  but  bay- 
onets. A  gun  might  have  been  nothing  more 
than  a  pike.  Later  everything  was  bombs, 
and  sometimes  soldiers  just  stood  and  waited 
till  the  Boches  got  close,  so  that  they  could  peg 
something  at  'em.  But  when  these  men  go 
away  they're  going  to  know  that  the  bombs 
and  the  bayonet  are  the  frill.  It's  the  shoot- 
ing that  counts." 

We  saw  a  good  deal  of  the  British  army  dur- 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

ing  our  trip  but  the  thing  which  gave  me  the 
clearest  insight  into  the  fundamental  fighting, 
sporting  spirit  of  the  army  was  a  story  which 
an  officer  told  me  of  an  incident  which  oc- 
curred in  the  sector  where  he  was  stationed. 
An  enlisted  man  and  an  officer  were  trapped 
during  a  daylight  patrol  when  a  mist  lifted  and 
they  had  to  take  shelter  in  a  shell  hole.  They 
lay  there  for  some  hours,  and  then  the  soldier 
endeavored  to  make  a  break  back  for  his  own 
trenches.  No  sooner  had  his  head  and  shoul- 
ders appeared  above  the  shell  hole  than  a  Ger- 
man machine  gun  pattered  away  at  him.  He 
was  hit  and  the  officer  started  to  climb  up  to 
his  assistance. 

"No,  don't  come,"  said  the  soldier.  "They 
got  me,  sir."  He  put  his  hand  up  acid  indi- 
cated a  wound  on  the  left  hand  side  of  his  chest. 
*'It  was  a  damn  good  shot,"  he  said. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

BACK  FROM  PRISON 

France  has  a  better  right  to  fight  than  any 
nation  in  the  world  because  she  can  wage  war, 
even  a  slow  and  bitter  war,  with  a  gesture. 
Misery  does  not  blind  the  French  to  the  dra- 
matic. Even  the  tears  and  the  heartache  are 
made  to  count  for  France.  We  saw  wounded 
men  come  back  from  German  prison  camps 
and  Lyons  made  the  coming  of  these  wrecked 
and  shattered  soldiers  a  pageant.  Gray  men, 
grim  men,  silent  men  stood  up  and  shouted  like 
boys  in  the  bleachers  because  there  was  some- 
one there  to  greet  them  with  the  right  word. 
There  is  always  somebody  in  France  who  has 
that  word. 

This  time  it  was  a  lieutenant  colonel  of  ar- 
tillery. He  was  a  man  big  as  Jess  Willard 
and  his  voice  boomed  through  the  station  like 
one  of  his  own  huge  howitzers  as  he  swung  his 

221 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

arm  above  his  head  and  said  to  the  men  from 
Germany:  "I  want  you  all  to  join  with  me  in 
a  great  cry.  Open  j^our  throats  as  well  as  your 
hearts.  The  cry  we  want  to  hear  from  you  is 
one  that  you  want  to  give  because  for  so  long 
a  time  you  have  been  forbidden  to  cry  'Vive 
la  France.'  "  The  big  man  shouted  as  he  said 
it,  but  this  time  the  howitzer  voice  was  not 
heard  above  the  roar  of  other  voices. 

The  French  soldiers  who  came  back  from 
Germany  had  been  for  some  little  time  in  a 
recuperation  camp  in  Switzerland.  A  few 
were  lame,  many  were  thin  and  peaked  and  al- 
most all  were  gray,  but  the  Lyonnaise  said 
that  this  was  not  nearly  so  bad  as  the  last  train 
load  of  men  from  German  prisons.  There 
were  no  madmen  this  time. 

The  windows  of  the  cars  were  crowded  with 
faces  as  the  train  came  slowly  into  the  sta- 
tion. There  was  no  shouting  until  the  big  man 
made  his  speech.  Some  of  the  returned  pris- 
oners waved  their  hands,  but  most  of  them 
greeted  the  soldiers  and  the  crowds  which 
waited  for  them  with  formal  salutes.  A  file 
of  soldiers  was  drawn  up  along  the  platform 

222 


BACK  FROM  PRISON 

and  outside  the  station  was  a  squad  of  cavalry 
trying  to  stand  just  as  motionless  as  the  in- 
fantry. There  were  horns  and  trumpets  in- 
side the  station  and  out  and  they  blew  a  nip- 
ping, rollicking  tune  as  the  train  rolled  in. 
The  wounded  men,  all  but  a  few  on  stretchers, 
descended  from  the  cars  in  military  order. 
Lame  men  with  canes  hopped  and  skipped  in 
order  to  keep  step  with  their  more  nimble  com- 
rades. 

There  was  an  old  woman  in  black  who  darted 
out  from  the  crowd  and  wanted  to  throw  her 
arms  around  the  neck  of  a  young  soldier,  but 
he  waved  to  her  not  to  come.  You  see  she 
still  thought  of  him  as  a  boy,  but  that  had  been 
three  years  ago.  He  was  a  marching  man  now 
and  it  would  never  do  to  break  the  formation. 
Group  by  group  they  came  from  the  train  with 
a  new  blare  of  the  trumpets  for  each  unit. 
There  were  416  French  soldiers,  thirty-seven 
French  officers  and  seventeen  Belgians.  They 
marched  past  the  receiving  group  of  officers 
and  saluted  punctiliously,  though  it  was  a  lit- 
tle bit  hard  because  their  arms  were  full  of 
flowers.    When  they  had  all  been  gathered  in 

223 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

the  waiting  room  of  the  station  the  big  colonel 
made  his  speech.  He  did  not  speak  very  long 
because  the  returned  soldiers  could  see  out  of 
the  corner  of  their  eyes  that  just  across  the 
room  were  big  tables  with  scores  of  expectant 
and  anticipatory  bottles  of  champagne.  But 
there  was  fizz,  too,  to  the  talk  of  the  big  colonel. 
I  had  the  speech  translated  for  me  afterwards 
but  I  guessed  that  some  of  it  was  about  the 
Germans,  for  I  caught  the  phrase  "inhuman 
cruelty." 

"You  have  a  right  to  feel  now  that  you  are 
back  on  the  soil  of  France  after  all  these  years 
of  inhuman  cruelty  that  your  work  is  done," 
said  the  colonel,  "but  there  is  still  something 
that  you  must  do.  There  is  something  that  you 
ought  to  do.  You  will  tell  everybody  of  the 
wrongs  the  Germans  have  inflicted  upon  you. 
You  will  tell  exactly  what  they  have  done  and 
you  will  thus  serve  France  by  increasing  the 
hatred  between  our  people  and  their  people." 

The  soldiers  and  the  crowd  cheered  then  al- 
most as  loudly  as  they  did  later  in  the  great 
shout  of  "Vive  la  France."  The  gray  men,  the 
grim  men  and  the  silent  men  were  stirred  by 

224. 


BACK  FROM  PRISON 

what  the  colonel  said  because  they  did  and  will 
forever  have  a  quarrel  with  the  German  peo- 
ple. 

"We  are  doubly  glad  to  welcome  you  back 
to  France  because  our  hearts  have  been  so 
cheered  by  the  coming  of  America,"  continued 
the  colonel.  "Victory  seems  nearer  and  nearer 
and  vengeance  for  all  the  things  you  have  en- 
dured." It  was  then  that  he  snatched  the  great 
shout  of  "Vive  la  France"  from  the  crowd. 

As  the  din  died  down  the  corks  began  to 
pop  and  men  who  a  little  time  before  had 
not  even  been  sure  of  a  proper  ration  of  water 
began  to  gulp  champagne  out  of  tin  cups.  The 
sting  of  the  wine,  the  excitement  and  the  din 
were  too  much  for  one  returned  prisoner.  He 
had  scarcely  lifted  his  glass  to  his  lips  than  he 
fell  over  in  a  heap  and  there  was  one  more 
weary  w^anderer  to  make  his  return  sickabed 
in  a  stretcher.  But  the  rest  marched  better 
as  they  came  out  of  the  station  with  band  tunes 
blaring  in  their  ears  and  God  knows  what  tunes 
singing  in  their  hearts  as  they  clanked  along 
the  cobbles.  For  they  had  been  dead  men  and 
they  were  back  in  France  and  there  was  sun 

225 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

in  the  sky.  When  they  crossed  the  bridge  they 
broke  ranks.  The  old  woman  in  black  was 
there  and  for  just  a  minute  the  marching  man 
became  a  boy  again.. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

FINISHING  TOUCHES 

The  American  army  had  begun  to  find  it- 
self when  October  came  round.  Perhaps  it 
had  not  yet  gained  a  complete  army  conscious- 
ness, but  there  could  be  no  doubt  about  com- 
pany spirit.  Chaps  who  had  been  civilians  only 
a  few  months  before  now  spoke  of  "my  com- 
pany" as  if  they  had  grown  up  with  the  out- 
fit. They  were  also  ready  to  declare  loudly 
and  profanely  in  public  places  that  H  or  L  or 
K  or  I,  as  the  case  might  be,  was  the  best  com- 
pany in  the  army.  Some  were  willing  to  let 
the  remark  stand  for  the  world. 

Too  much  credit  cannot  be  given  to  the  cap- 
tains of  the  first  American  Expeditionary 
Force.  A  captain  commands  more  men  now 
than  ever  before  in  the  American  army  and  he 
has  more  power.  This  was  particularly  true  in 
France  where  many  companies  had  a  little  vil- 

227 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

lage  to  themselves.  The  captain,  therefore, 
was  not  only  a  military  leader,  a  father  con- 
fessor, and  a  gents'  furnisher,  but  also  an  am- 
bassador to  the  people  of  a  small  section  of 
France.  The  colonels. and  majors  and  the  rest 
are  the  fellows  who  think  up  things  to  be  done, 
but  it  is  the  captains  who  do  them. 

Of  course  that  wasn't  the  way  the  junior 
officers  looked  at  it.  A  man  who  was  a  first 
lieutenant  when  the  army  came  to  France  told 
us:  "A  first  lieutenant  is  supposed  to  know 
everything- and  do  everything;  a  captain  is  sup- 
posed to  know  everything  and  do  nothing,  and 
a  major  is  supposed  to  know  nothing  and  do 
nothing." 

We  were  delighted  early  this  year  when  we 
heard  that  he  had  been  made  a  major,  for  we 
immediately  sat  down  and  telegraphed  to  him : 
*'After  what  you  told  us  this  summer,  we  are 
sure  you  will  be  an  excellent  major." 

By  October  much  of  the  feeling  between  the 
officers  of  the  regular  army  and  the  reserve  had 
been  smoothed  out,  but  it  was  not  like  that  in 
the  early  days.  Once  when  a  young  reserve 
major  wa-s  put  in  command  of  a  battalion,  a 

228 


FINISHING  TOUCHES 

regular  army  captain  who  was  much  his  senior 
in  years  observed:  "I  think  there  ought  to  be 
an  army  regulation  that  no  reserve  ofHcer  shall 
be  appointed  to  command  a  battalion  without 
the  consent  of  his  parents  or  guardian."  But 
as  the  work  grew  harder  and  harder  many  little 
jealousies  of  the  army  were  simply  sweated 
out.  It  Avas  easy  to  do  that,  for  the  American 
army  woke  up,  or  rather  was  awakened,  every 
morning  at  five  o'clock.  There  was  a  Kansas 
farmer  in  one  company  who  was  always  up  and 
waiting  for  the  buglers.  He  said  that  the 
schedule  of  the  American  army  always  left  him 
at  a  loss  as  to  what  to  do  with  his  mornings. 
But  for  the  rest  the  trumpeters  were  compelled 
to  blow  their  loudest.  Roll  call  was  at  five- 
thirty  and  this  was  followed  with  setting  up 
exercises  designed  to  give  the  men  an  appetite 
for  the  six  o'clock  breakfast.  This  was  almost 
always  a  hearty  meal.  The  poilus  who  began 
the  day  with  a  cup  of  black  coffee  and  a  little 
war  bread  were  amazed  to  see  the  doughboys 
start  off  at  daylight  with  Irish  stew,  or  bacon 
or  ham  or  mush  and  occasionally  eggs  in  addi- 
tion to  white  bread  and  coffee. 

229 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

After  breakfast  came  sick  call,  at  which  men 
who  felt  unable  to  drill  for  any  reason  were 
obliged  to  talk  it  over  with  the  doctor.  Those 
who  had  no  ailments  went  to  work  vigorously 
in  making  up  their  cots  and  cleaning  their 
quarters.  At  seven  they  fell  in  and  marched 
away  to  the  training  ground.  Mornings  were 
usually  devoted  to  bombing,  machine  gun  and 
automatic  rifle  practice.  A  little  after  eleven 
the  doughboys  started  back  to  their  billets  for 
dinner.  This  was  likely  to  consist  of  beans 
and  boiled  beef  or  salmon,  or  there  would  be 
a  stew  again  or  corned  beef  hash.  The  most 
prevalent  vegetables  were  potatoes  and  canned 
corn.  Dinner  might  also  include  a  pudding, 
nearly  always  rice  or  canned  fruit.  Sometimes 
there  was  jam  and,  of  course,  coiFee  and  bread 
were  abundant. 

During  the  latter  part  of  the  training  period 
the  home  dinner  was  often  omitted  in  favor  of 
a  meal  prepared  at  the  training  ground.  The 
afternoon  work  began  a  little  before  two.  Rifle 
practice,  drills  and  bayonet  work  were  usuafly 
the  phases  of  warfare  undertaken  at  this  time 
of  day.     Labor   ceased   at  four  with  supper, 

230 


FINISHING  TOUCHES 

which  was  much  the  same  sort  of  meal  as  din- 
ner, at  five-thirty.  After  supper  the  soldier's 
time  was  pretty  much  his  own.  He  could  loaf 
about  the  town  hall  and  listen  to  the  army  band 
play  selections  from  "The  Fair  Co-ed,"  "The 
Prince  of  Pilsen"  or  any  one  of  a  score  of  comic 
operas  long  dead  and  forgotten  by  everyone 
but  army  bandmasters,  or  he  could  go  to  the 
iY.  M.  C.  A.  and  read  or  write  letters  or  play 
checkers  or  perhaps  pool  of  the  sort  which  is 
possible  on  a  small  portable  table.  He  was 
due  back  in  quarters  and  in  bed  at  nine  and 
he  was  always  asleep  at  one  minute  and  thirty 
seconds  after  nine. 

The  training  hours  became  more  crowded,  if 
not  longer,  as  the  time  drew  nearer  when  the 
American  army  should  go  to  the  front.  Every- 
body was  anxious  that  they  should  make  a  good 
showing.  Trench  problems  had  to  be  consid- 
ered and  gas  and  bayonet  work  which  was  the 
phase  in  which  the  training  was  lagging  some- 
what. It  was  also  considered  useful  that  the 
men  should  have  some  experience  with  shell 
fire  before  thej'^  heard  guns  fired  in  anger,  and 
so  it  was  arranged  that  a  sham  battle  should 

231 


THE  A.  E.  r. 

take  place  in  which  the  French  would  fire  a 
barrage  over  the  heads  of  the  American  troops. 
The  first  plan  was  that  the  doughboys  should 
advance  behind  this  barrage  as  in  actual  war- 
fare and  attack  a  system  of  practice  trenches. 
Later  it  was  decided  that  it  was  not  worth 
while  to  risk  possible  casualties,  as  the  men 
could  learn  almost  as  much  although  held  four 
or  five  hundred  yards  behind  the  barrage. 

The  bombardment  began  with  thirty-six 
shots  to  the  minute  and  was  gradually  raised 
to  fifty-two.  The  doughboys  were  allowed  to 
sit  down  to  watch  the  show.  Our  soldiers 
seemed  a  bit  unfeeling,  for  not  one  expressed 
any  regret  at  the  destruction  of  Hindenburg, 
Ludendorff,  and  Mackensen,  although  they 
had  spent  many  a  happy  afternoon  under  the 
broiling  sun  constructing  this  elaborate  trench 
system.  None  of  the  men  seemed  disturbed, 
either,  by  the  unfamiliar  whistling  sounds  over 
head.  All  the  doughboys  wore  steel  helmets 
but  two  were  slightly  injured  by  small  frag- 
ments from  shells  which  fell  a  little  short.  In 
both  cases  the  wounded  man  had  lowered  the 
protective  value  of  his  helmet  somewhat  by 

232 


FINISHING  TOUCHES 

sitting  on  it.  After  the  first  interest  in  the 
show  wore  off  many  proved  their  abihty  to 
steal  naps  in  spite  of  the  bickering  of  the  big 
guns.  The  marines,  for  instance,  had  marched 
eighteen  miles  after  rising  at  3 :30  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  although  the  marine  corps  is  singu- 
larly hardy,  a  few  made  up  lost  sleep.  The 
patter  of  the  French  seventy-fives  was  no  more 
than  rain  on  the  roof  to  these  men  when  they 
could  find  sufficient  cover  to  sleep  unobserved. 

The  most  fortunate  soldiers  were  those  who 
were  stationed  in  a  fringe  of  woods  which  bor- 
dered on  the  big  meadow.  Here  the  dough- 
boys did  a  little  shooting  on  their  own  ac- 
count when  no  officers  were  at  hand.  In  a 
sudden  lull  of  gunfire  I  heard  a  voice  say: 
"Shoot  it  all,"  and  there  was  a  rattle  of  dice 
in  the  bottom  of  a  steel  helmet. 

When  the  bombardment  was  at  its  height  a 
big  hawk  sailed  over  the  field  full  in  the  path- 
way of  hundreds  of  shells.  He  circled  about 
calmly  in  spite  of  the  shrieking  things  which 
whizzed  by  him  and  then  he  turned  contempt- 
iiously  and  flew  away  very  slowly.     Perhaps 

233 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

he  was  disappointed  because  it  was  only  a 
sham  battle. 

Of  course  some  of  the  officers  saw  the  real 
thing.  Many  made  trips  to  the  French  front 
and  a  few  fired  some  shots  at  the  German  lines 
just  to  set  a  good  precedent.  American  of- 
ficers attended  all  the  French  offensives  of 
the  summer  as  invited  guests.  Brigadier  Gen- 
eral George  Duncan  and  Lieutenant  Colonel 
Campbell  King  were  cited  by  the  French  army 
for  the  croix  de  guerre  after  they  had  spent 
some  thrilling  hours  at  Verdun.  The  awards 
were  largely  complimentary,  of  course,  but  the 
American  officers  saw  plenty  of  action.  Ac- 
cording to  the  French  officers  General  Duncan 
was  at  an  advanced  observation  post  when  the 
Germans  spotted  it  and  began  pouring  in  shell. 
One  fragment  hit  the  General's  hat  and  the 
colonel  in  charge  advised  him  that  it  would  be 
well  to  move  back  to  a  safer  point  of  vantage. 
Duncan  replied  that  this  was  the  first  show  he 
had  ever  seen  and  that  he  did  not  want  to  give 
up  his  front  row  seat  if  he  could  help  it. 

Lieutenant  Colonel  King  paid  visits  to  the 
first  aid  dressing  stations  under  heavy  fire  and 

234 


FINISHING  TOUCHES 

encouraged  the  wounded  with  words  of  good 
cheer  in  bad  French.  The  night  before  the 
attack  his  dugout  was  flooded  with  poison 
vapor  from  German  gas  shells,  but  he  aw  oke  in 
time  to  arouse  his  two  companions,  who  got 
their  masks  on  in  time  to  prevent  injury.  An- 
other American  officer  who  shall  be  nameless 
found  it  difficult  to  sit  back  as  a  spectator  when 
so  much  was  going  on.  He  was  a  brigadier 
general,  but  this  was  his  first  taste  of  war  on 
a  big  scale.  The  French  oiFensive  aroused  his 
enthusiasm  so  much  that  he  said  to  a  fellow 
American  officer:  "Nobody's  watching  us  now, 
let's  sneak  up  ahead  there  and  throw  a  few 
bombs."  The  second  officer,  who  was  only  a 
captain,  reminded  him  of  his  rank. 

"I  can't  help  that,"  said  the  General,  "I've 
just  got  to  try  and  see  if  I  can't  bomb  a  few 
squareheads."  Discipline  was  overlooked  for 
a  moment  then  as  the  captain  restrained  the 
General  with  physical  force  from  going  for- 
ward to  try  out  his  arm. 

The  British  now  seem  to  be  able  to  give  the 
Germans  more  than  the^^  want  in  gas,  but  this 
superiority  did  not  come  until  late  in  the  year. 

235 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

American  officers  who  went  to  the  front  re- 
turned with  a  profound  respect  for  German 
gas  and,  in  fact,  all  gas.  This  feeling  was  re- 
flected in  the  thoroughgoing  training  which  the 
men  received  in  gas  and  masks.  It  began  with 
lectures  by  the  company  commanders  in  which 
it  is  certain  no  very  optimistic  picture  of  poison 
vapor  was  painted.  Then  came  long  drills  in 
putting  on  the  mask  in  three  counts  and  hold- 
ing the  breath  during  the  adjustment.  The 
contrivance  used  was  not  a  little  like  a  catcher's 
mask  and  this  simplified  the  problem  somewhat. 
The  men  carried  the  masks  with  them  every- 
where and  developed  great  speed  in  get- 
ting under  protection.  Conscientious  officers 
harassed  their  men  by  calling  out  "gas  attack" 
at  unexpected  moments  such  as  when  men  were 
shaving  or  eating  or  sleeping.  Finally  the 
doughboys  were  actually  sent  through  gas. 

Big  air-proof  cellars  were  constructed  in 
each  village  and  here  the  tests  were  held.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  the  gas  used  was  a  form  of 
tear  gas,  calculated  to  irritate  the  eyes  and  nose 
and  perhaps  to  cause  blindness  for  a  few  hours. 
It  would  not  cause  permanent  injury  even  if 

236 


FINISHING  TOUCHES 

a  mask  were  improperly  adjusted.  The  com- 
parative harmlessness  of  the  test  vapor  Avas 
kept  secret.  When  the  men  went  down  the 
steps  they  thought  that  one  whiff  of  the  air  in 
the  cellar  would  be  fatal  and  so  chey  were  most 
careful  that  each  strap  should  be  in  its  place. 
Most  of  them  had  shaved  twice  over  on  the 
morning  of  the  test  so  that  the  mask  should  fit 
closely  to  the  side  of  the  face. 

The  first  man  to  go  in  was  a  captain  and 
when  he  came  out  again  obviously  alive  and 
seemingly  healthy,  the  doughboys  were  ready 
to  take  a  chance.  A  young  soldier  in  the  sec- 
ond batch  to  visit  the  gas  chamber  had  taken 
the  tales  of  the  vapor  horrors  a  bit  too  much 
to  heart.  He  became  panicstricken  after  one 
minute  in  the  underground  vault  and  had  to  be 
helped  out,  faint  and  trembling. 

"What's  the  matter?"  said  his  officer.  "Are 
you  afraid?" 

"Yes,  sir,"  the  boy  answered  frankly.  "But 
I  want  to  try  it  again,"  he  added  quickly.  He 
did,  too.  And  what  is  more,  he  remained  in  for 
an  extra  period  as  self -discipline  for  his  soul. 
When  he  came  out  he  leaned  against  a  fence 

237 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

and  was  sick,  but  he  was  triumphant  because 
he  had  proved  to  himself  that  his  second  wind 
of  grit  was  stronger  than  his  nerves  or  his 
stomach. 

As  the  afternoon  wore  on  a  trip  through  the 
gas  chamber  became  a  lark  rather  than  an  ad- 
venture and  each  batch  before  it  went  in  was 
greeted  by  such  remarks  as  "Never  mind  the 
good-byes,  Snooty!  Just  pay  me  that  $2  you 
owe  me  before  you  check  off." 

"Who  invented  this  gas  stuff,  anyway?" 
asked  a  fat  soldier,  as  he  sat  in  the  stifling 
vault,  puffing  and  perspiring.  "The  Ger- 
mans," he  was  told. 

"Well,"  he  panted,  "I'm  going  to  give  'em 
hell  for  this." 

There  was  other  practice  which  seemed  less 
warlike.  Particular  attention  was  paid  to  sig- 
naling and  men  on  hilltops  stood  and  waved 
their  arms  at  each  other  from  dawn  until  sun- 
set. I  stood  one  bright  day  with  an  expert  who 
was  trying  the  utmost  capacity  of  the  man  sta- 
tioned on  the  hill  across  the  valley.  The  of- 
ficer made  the  little  flags  whirl  through  the  air 
like  bunting  on  a  battleship.    He  looked  across 

238 


FINISHING  TOUCHES 

the  peaceful  countryside  and  saw  war  dangers 
on  every  hand.  The  gas  attack  which  his  flags 
predicted  seemed  nothing  more  to  me  than  the 
dust  raised  by  a  passing  army  truck.  He  sig- 
naled that  the  tanks  were  coming,  but  they 
mooed  as  they  moved  and  the  aeroplanes  of 
which  he  spoke  in  dots  and  dashes  cawed  most 
distinctly.  With  a  twist  of  his  wrist  he  would 
summon  a  battery  and  with  another  send  them 
back  again.  There  was  an  emphatic  whip  and 
swirl  of  color,  and  in  answer  to  the  signal 
mythical  infantry  swarmed  over  theoretical 
trenches  to  attack  shadow  soldiers.  The  task 
of  the  receiving  soldier  was  made  more  difficult 
because  every  now  and  then  the  officer  would 
vary  his  military  messages  with  "Double- 
header  at  the  Polo  Grounds  today"  or  "Please 
pass  the  biscuits."  But  the  soldier  read  them 
all  correctly.  Biscuits  were  just  as  easy  for 
him  as  bullets. 

The  men  were  also  tested  for  their  ability 
lo  carry  oral  messages.  As  a  result  of  this 
drill  there  were  several  new  mule  drivers.  The 
test  message  was,  "Major  Blank  sends  his  com- 
pliments to  Captain  Nameless  and  orders  him 

239 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

to  move  L  company  one-half  mile  to  the  east 
and  support  K  company  in  the  attack."  After 
giving  out  this  message  the  officer  moved  to  the 
top  of  a  hill  to  receive  it.  The  first  soldier  who 
came  up  had  difficulty  in  delivering  the  mes- 
sage because  English  seemed  more  alien  to  him 
than  Italian.  He  had  it  all  right  at  that,  ex- 
cept that  he  made  it  a  mile  and  a  half.  The 
next  three  delivered  the  message  correctly,  but 
then  a  large  soldier  came  panting  up,  fairly 
bursting  with  excitement,  and  exclaimed:  "The 
major  says  he  hopes  you're  feeling  all  right 
and  please  take  your  company  a  mile  to  the 
east  and  attack  K  company,"  The  names  of 
such  careless  messengers  were  noted  down  so 
that  they  might  not  cause  blunders  in  battle. 

Precaution  was  taken  against  another  source 
of  mistakes  by  sending  American  officers  out  to 
drill  French  units.  A  few  found  no  trouble 
in  giving  orders  which  the  poilus  could  under- 
stand, but  some  had  bad  cases  of  stage  fright. 

"I  almost  wiped  out  a  French  battalion," 
said  one  young  West  Pointer.  "I  got  'em 
started  all  right  with  'avance'  and  they  went 
off  at  a  great  clip.    I  noticed  that  there  was  a 

240 


FINISHING  TOUCHES 

cliff  right  ahead  of  us  and  I  began  to  try  and 
think  how  you  said  'halt'  in  French.  I  couldn't 
remember  and  I  didn't  want  to  get  out  in  front 
and  flag  'em  by  waving  my  arms,  so  we  just 
kept  marching  right  on  toward  the  cliff.  They 
had  their  orders  and  they  kept  on  going.  It 
began  to  look  as  if  we'd  all  march  right  off  the 
cliff  just  to  satisfy  their  pride  and  mine,  but  a 
French  lieutenant  came  to  the  rescue  with  'a 
gauche  en  quatre!'  I  didn't  know  that  one, 
but  I  was  a  goat  just  the  same.  I  could  have 
gotten  away  with  'halt'  all  right,  because  I 
found  out  afterwards  that  it's  'halte'  in  French 
and  that  sounds  almost  the  same." 

The  British  as  well  as  the  French  helped  in 
the  final  polishing  of  the  doughboys  who  were 
to  go  to  the  trenches.  An  English  major  and 
three  sergeants  came  to  camp  to  teach  bayonet 
work.  They  brought  a  healthy  touch  of  blunt 
criticism.  The  major  told  some  young  officers 
who  were  studying  in  a  training  school  that  he 
wanted  a  trench  dug.  He  told  them  the  lengtli 
and  the  depth  which  he  wanted  and  the  time 
at  which  he  expected  it  to  be  finished.  It  was 
not  done  at  the  appointed  hour.     "Oh,  I  say, 

241 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

that's  rotten,  you  know!"  exclaimed  the  big 
Englishman.  The  American  officer  in  charge 
was  somewhat  startled.  The  French  were  al- 
ways careful  to  phrase  unfavorable  criticism 
in  pleasant  words  and  there  were  times  when 
the  sting  was  not  felt.  A  rebuke  so  directly 
expressed  surprised  the  American  so  much  that 
he  started  to  make  excuses  for  his  men.  He 
explained  that  the  soil  in  which  they  were  dig- 
ging was  full  of  rocks.  The  British  major  cut 
him  short. 

"Never  mind  about  the  excuses,"  he  said, 
"that  was  rotten  work  and  you  know  it." 

Curiously  enough  the  American  army  got 
along  very  well  with  this  particular  instructor 
and  he  on  his  part  had  the  highest  praise  for 
the  capabilities  of  the  American  after  he  had 
sized  them  up  in  training.  He  was  more  suc- 
cessful than  the  French  in  wheedling  the 
Americans  into  visualizing  actual  war  condi- 
tions in  their  practice. 

"Never  let  your  men  remember  that  they  are 
charging  dummies,"  said  the  visiting  major  to 
an  American  officer.     "Make  them  think  the 

242 


FINISHING  TOUCHES 

straw  men  are  Germans.    It  can  be  done  even 
without  the  use  of  dummies.    Watch  me." 

A  remarkable  demonstration  followed.  The 
major  sent  for  a  little  Cockney  sergeant. 
"Now,"  he  said,  "this  stick  of  mine  with  a  knob 
on  the  end  is  a  German.  Show  these  Amer- 
icans how  you  would  go  after  him." 

The  little  sergeant  did  some  brisk  work  in 
slashing  at  the  end  of  the  stick  with  his  bayonet 
but  the  big  major  was  not  content.  "Remem- 
ber," he  said,  "this  is  a  German,"  and  then  he 
would  add  suddenl}?-  every  now  and  again: 
"Look  out,  my  lad — he's  coming  at  you!" 

And  bye-and-bj^e  the  insinuation  began  to 
take  effect.  The  little  man  had  spent  two 
years  on  the  line  and  it  was  easy  to  see  that 
bit  by  bit  he  was  beginning  to  visualize  the 
stick  with  a  cloth  knob  as  a  Boche  adversary. 
His  thrusts  grew  fiercer  and  fiercer.  The  point 
of  his  bayonet  flashed  into  the  cloth  knob  again 
and  again.  He  was  trembling  ^\ith  rage  as  he 
played  the  battle  game.  As  he  finally  flung 
himself  upon  the  stick  and  knocked  it  out  of 
the  major's  hands  the  officer  called  a  halt. 

"There,"  he  said  to  the  Americans,  "if  your 
243 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

men  are  to  train  well,  you've  got  to  make  them 
believe  it's  true,  and  you  can  do  it." 

The  British  added  lots  of  snap  to  the  Amer- 
ican training  because  they  knew  how  to  arouse 
the  competitive  spirit.  They  made  even  the 
most  routine  sort  of  a  drill  a  game,  and  whether 
the  men  were  bayoneting  dummies  or  shooting 
at  tin  cans  the  little  Britishers  kept  them  at 
top  speed  by  stirring  up  rivalry  between  the 
various  organizations.  Sometimes  the  slang 
was  a  bit  puzzling.  The  marines,  for  instance, 
didn't  know  just  what  their  bayonet  instructor 
meant  when  he  said:  "Come  on,  you  dread- 
noughts, give  'em  the  old  'kamerad.'  " 

Curiously  enough  the  other  specialty  in  ad- 
dition to  bayonet  work  which  the  British  taught 
the  doughboys  was  organized  recreation.  Thus 
a  British  sergeant  would  take  his  squad  from 
practicing  the  grimmest  feature  of  all  war 
training  and  set  the  men  to  tossing  beanbags  or 
playing  leapfrog.  Prisoner's  base,  red  rover 
and  a  score  of  games  played  in  the  streets  of 
every  American  city  were  used  to  bring  relaxa- 
tion to  the  soldiers.  There  were  other  rough 
and  tumble  games  in  which  the  players  buf- 

244. 


FINISHING  TOUCHES 

feted  each  other  assiduously  in  a  neutral  part 
of  the  body  with  knotted  towels.  The  em- 
phasis was  put  upon  the  ludicrous  in  all  these 
games. 

"This  may  seem  childish  and  silly  to  you," 
said  the  major,  "but  we  have  found  on  the  line 
that  the  quickest  way  to  bring  back  the  spirit 
of  a  regiment  which  has  been  battered  in  bat- 
tle is  to  take  the  men  as  soon  as  they  come  from 
the  trenches  and  set  them  to  playing  these  fool- 
ish little  games  which  they  knew  when  they 
were  lads.  When  we  get  them  to  laughing 
again  we  know  we've  made  them  forget  the 
light." 

Mostly  it  wasn't  play.  There  were  long 
mornings  and  afternoons  spent  in  battalion 
problems  in  which  the  doughboj^s  again  and 
again  captured  the  position  made  up  of  the 
trenches  Roosevelt,  Taft  and  Wilson.  One 
general  pointed  out  that  communication  be- 
tween Roosevelt  and  Taft  would  be  necessarily 
difficult  and  between  Roosevelt  and  Wilson  all 
but  impossible.  The  doughboys  overcame 
these  difficulties  as  they  advanced  under  theo- 

245 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

retical  barrages  and  hurled  live  bombs  into  the 
trenches  or  thereabouts. 

The  last  set  event  of  the  training  period  was 
a  big  field  meet  in  which  picked  companies 
competed  in  military  events.  The  meet  began 
with  musketry  and  worked  through  bayonets, 
hand  grenades,  automatic  rifles,  and  machine 
guns,  ending  with  trench  digging.  It  was  sup- 
posed that  this  would  be  the  least  exciting,  but 
two  companies  came  up  to  the  last  event  tied 
for  the  point  trophy.  Honor  and  a  big  silver 
trophy  and  everything  hung  on  this  last  event 
and  the  men  could  not  have  worked  harder  if 
they  had  been  under  German  shellfire.  Par- 
tisans of  both  sides  stood  nearby  and  shouted 
encouragement  to  their  friends  and  heavy  ban- 
ter at  the  foe.  There  was  organized  cheering 
and  singing,  too,  and  a  couple  of  bands  blared 
while  the  competitors  lay  prone  and  hacked 
away  at  the  tough  soil.  One  band  played 
"Won't  You  Come  and  Waltz  With  Me?" 
while  the  other  favored  "Sweet  Rosie 
O'Grady."  Neither  seemed  particularly  per- 
tinent, but  there  wasn't  much  sense  of  the  ap- 
propriate  in    the    third    band,    either,    which 

246 


FINISHING  TOUCHES 

played  "Dearie,"  while  the  soldiers  were  stab- 
bing imitation  Boches  in  the  bayonet  contest. 

The  champions  of  the  pick  and  shovel 
brushed  some  of  the  dirt  off  their  uniforms  and 
lined  up  to  receive  the  prize,  which  was  a  big 
silver  salad  bowl.  The  best  bayoneters  got  a 
sugar  shaker  and  there  were  mugs  and  wrist 
watches  and  plain  watches  and  all  sorts  of 
things  from  the  commander  and  from  General 
Sibert  and  General  Castelnau.  No  sooner 
were  the  prizes  distributed  than  news  came  that 
the  White  Sox  had  won  the  first  game  of  the 
world  series  from  the  Giants  and  then  there 
was  more  cheering.  The  winning  company 
went  back  to  camp  in  a  big  truck  loudly  and 
tunefully  proclaiming  to  the  natives :  "We  got 
style,  all  the  while,  all  the  while." 

The  Germans  contributed  one  post  graduate 
phase  of  training  which  was  not  on  the  pro- 
gram. Shortly  before  the  troops  went  to 
the  front  a  Zeppelin  was  brought  down  in  a 
town  within  marching  distance  of  the  Amer- 
ican training  zone.  The  big  balloon  could  not 
have  been  better  placed  if  its  landing  had  been 
directed  by  a  Coney  Island  showman.    It  was 

247 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

perched  on  two  hills  just  by  the  side  of  a  road 
and  visitors  came  from  miles  about  to  look  at 
the  monster.  Early  comers  reaped  a  rich  har- 
vest of  souvenirs.  "I  only  had  to  get  three 
more  screws  loose  and  I'd  have  had  the  steer- 
ing wheel  if  a  French  soldier  hadn't  come  up 
and  stopped  me,"  complained  an  American 
correspondent. 

The  chasseurs  left  to  go  back  into  the  line 
before  the  Americans  started  for  the  front. 
The  departure  of  the  chasseurs  caused  genuine 
regret,  for  in  addition  to  a  profound  respect  for 
their  military  ability,  the  American  officers  and 
men  had  a  warm  personal  feeling  for  the  troops 
who  taught  them  the  first  rudiments  of  the 
modern  art  of  war.  In  all  the  camps  there  were 
ceremonies  for  the  soldiers  who  were  leaving 
drills  and  practice  attacks  and  sham  battles  to 
go  back  wherever  shock  troops  were  needed. 

"When  you  see  us  later  on  some  time,"  said 
an  American  officer,  "we  hope  to  make  you 
proud  of  your  pupils." 

Although  the  French  had  already  given  the 
Americans  all  the  fundamentals  they  would 
need  they  spent  their  last  few  hours  in  giving 

248 


FINISHING  TOUCHES 

them  some  of  the  fine  points  and  a  minute  de- 
scription of  just  what  conditions  they  might 
expect  at  the  front. 

"When  j^ou  go  up  there,"  said  a  French  of- 
ficer, "the  soldiers  you  come  to  relieve  will  say 
that  you  are  late.  They  will  say  that  they  have 
been  waiting  a  long  time  and  they  will  go  out 
very  quickly.  Always  we  find  when  we  come 
in  that  the  troops  in  the  trench  have  been  wait- 
ing a  long  time  and  always  they  go  out  very 
quickly." 

As  the  sturdy  Frenchmen  marched  away 
their  cries  of  "bonne  chance"  mingled  with 
equally  hearty  shouts  of  "good  luck." 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  AMERICAN  ARMY  MARCHES 
TO  THE  TRENCHES 

The  chief  press  officer  told  us  that  we  could 
spend  the  first  night  in  the  trenches  with  the 
American  army.  There  were  eight  correspon- 
dents and  we  went  jingling  up  to  the  front 
with  gas  masks  and  steel  helmets  hung  about 
our  necks  and  canned  provisions  in  our  pockets. 

It  was  dusk  when  we  left .    Bye-and-bye 

we  could  hear  the  guns  plainly  and  the  vil- 
lages through  which  we  traveled  all  showed 
their  share  of  shelling.  The  front  was  still  a 
few  miles  ahead  of  us,  but  we  left  the  cars  in 
the  square  of  a  large  village  and  started  to 
walk  the  rest  of  the  way.  We  got  no  further 
than  just  beyond  the  town.  An  American  of- 
ficer stood  at  the  foot  of  an  old  sign  post  which 
gave  the  distance  to  Metz,  but  not  the  difficul- 
ties. He  asked  us  our  destination  and  when  we 
told  him  that  we  were  going  to  spend  the  first 

250 


THE  AMERICAN  ARMY 

night  in  the  trenches  with  the  American  army 
he  wouldn't  hear  of  it. 

"There'll  be  trouble  enough  up  there,"  he 
said,  "without  newspapermen." 

He  was  a  nervous  man,  this  major.  Every 
now  and  then  he  would  look  at  his  watch. 
[When  he  looked  for  the  fourth  time  within  two 
minutes  he  felt  that  we  deserved  an  explana- 
tion. 

"I'm  a  little  nervous,"  he  said,  "because  the 
Boches  are  so  quiet  tonight.  I've  been  up  here 
looking  around  for  almost  a  week  and  every 
night  the  Germans  have  done  some  shelling." 
He  looked  at  his  watch  again.  "The  first  com- 
panj^  of  my  battalion  must  be  going  in  now." 
He  stood  and  listened  for  six  or  seven  seconds 
but  there  wasn't  a  sound.  "I  wonder  what 
those  Germans  are  up  to?"  he  continued.  "I 
don't  like  it.  I  wish  they'd  shoot  a  little.  This 
business  now  doesn't  seem  natural." 

We  turned  back  toward  the  town  and  left 
the  major  at  his  post  still  listening  for  some 
sound  from  up  there.  Soon  we  heard  a  noise, 
but  it  came  from  the  opposite  direction.  Sol- 
diers were  coming.    There  was  a  bend  in  the 

251 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

road  where  it  straightened  out  in  the  last  two 
miles  to  the  trenches.  It  was  so  dark  that  we 
could  not  see  the  men  until  they  were  almost 
up  to  us.  The  Americans  were  marching  to  the 
front.  The  French  had  instructed  them  and 
the  British  and  now  they  were  ready  to  learn 
just  what  the  Germans  could  teach  them. 

The  night  was  as  thick  as  the  mud.  The 
darkness  seemed  to  close  behind  each  line  of 
men  as  they  went  by.  Even  the  usual  march- 
ing rhythm  was  missing.  The  mud  took  care 
of  that.  The  doughboys  would  have  sung  if 
they  could.  Shells  wouldn't  have  been  much 
worse  than  the  silence.  One  soldier  did  begin 
in  a  low  voice,  "Tramp,  tramp,  tramp,  the  boys 
are  marching."  An  offieer  called,  "Cut  out  that 
noise."  There  was  no  tramp,  tramp,  tramp  on 
that  road.  Feet  came  down  squish,  squish, 
squish.  There  was  also  the  sound  of  the  wind. 
That  wasn't  very  cheerful,  either,  for  it  was 
rising  and  beginning  to  moan  a  little.  It 
seemed  to  get  hold  of  the  darkness  and  pile  it 
up  in  drifts  against  the  camouflage  screens 
which  lined  the  road. 

At  the  spot  where  the  road  turned  there  was 
252 


THE  AMERICAN  ARMY 

a  cafe  and  across  the  road  a  military  moving 
picture  theater.  The  door  of  the  cafe  was  open 
and  a  big  patch  of  hght  fell  across  the  road. 
The  doughboys  had  to  go  through  the  patch  of 
light  and  it  was  almost  impossible  not  to  turn 
a  bit  and  look  through  the  door.  There  was 
red  wine  and  white  to  be  had  for  the  asking 
there,  and  persuasion  would  bring  an  omelette. 
The  waitress  was  named  Marie,  but  they  called 
her  Madelon.  She  was  eighteen  and  had  black 
hair  with  red  ribbons.  She  could  talk  a  little 
English,  too,  but  nobody  came  to  the  door  of 
the  cafe  to  see  the  soldiers  go  by.  There  had 
been  a  good  many  who  passed  the  door  of  that 
cafe  in  three  j^ears. 

The  pictures  coifld  not  be  seen  from  the  road, 
but  we  could  hear  the  hum  of  the  machine 
which  made  them  move.  Presently,  we  went  tc 
the  door  and  looked.  The  theater  was  packed 
with  French  soldiers  who  were  back  from  the 
front  to  rest.  American  troops  were  going  into 
the  trenches  for  the  first  time.  Our  little  group 
of  civilians  had  come  thousands  of  miles  to  see 
this  thing,  but  the  poilus  did  not  stop  to  watch 
marching  men.     They  paid  their  10  centimes 

253 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

and  went  into  the  picture  show.  They  had  an 
American  Western  film  that  night,  and  French 
soldiers  who  only  the  day  before  had  been  face 
to  face  with  Germans,  shelled  and  gassed  and 
harassed  from  aeroplanes,  thrilled  as  Indians 
chased  cowboys  across  a  canvas  screen.  It 
grew  more  exciting  presently,  for  the  United 
States  cavaliy  came  riding  up  across  the  screen 
and  at  the  head  of  the  cavalcade  rode  Lieuten- 
ant Wallace  Kirke.  The  villain  had  spread  the 
story  that  he  wasn't  game,  but  there  was  noth- 
ing to  that.  The  poilus  realized  that  before  the 
film  was  done  and  so  did  the  Indians. 

Meanwhile  the  doughboys  were  marching  by 
as  silently  as  the  soldiers  on  the  screen,  for  this 
wasn't  a  movie-house  where  they  synchronized 
bugle  calls  and  rifle  fire  to  the  progress  of  the 
film.  At  one  point  in  the  story  there  was  some 
gun  thunder,  but  it  came  at  a  time  when  the 
orchestra  should  have  been  playing  "Hearts 
and  Flowers"  for  the  love  scene  in  the  garden. 
Of  course,  these  were  German  guns,  and  they 
were  fired  with  the  usual  German  disregard  for 
art. 

Probably  the  men  who  were  marching  to  the 
254 


THE  AMERICAN  ARMY 

trenches  would  have  enjoyed  the  scene  of  the 
home-coming  of  the  cavalry,  vrhen  Lieutenant 
Wallace  Kirke  confounded  the  villain,  who 
actually  held  a  commission  as  major  in  the 
United  States  army.  However,  the  dough- 
boys might  have  spotted  him  for  a  villain  from 
the  beginning,  on  account  of  his  wretched 
saluting.  The  director  should  have  spoken  to 
him  about  that. 

The  marching  men  looked  at  the  theater  as 
they  passed  by,  but  only  one  soldier  spoke.  He 
said:  "I  certainly  would  like  to  know  for  sure 
whether  I'll  ever  get  to  go  to  the  movies  again." 

They  went  a  couple  of  hundred  yards  more 
without  a  word,  and  then  a  soldier  who  couldn't 
stand  the  silence  any  longer  shouted, 
"Whoopee!  Whoopee!"  It  was  too  dark  to 
conduct  an  investigation  and  too  close  to  the 
line  to  administer  any  rebuke  loud  enough  to 
be  effective,  and  so  the  nearest  officer  just 
glared  in  the  general  direction  of  the  offender. 
A  little  bit  further  on  the  soldiers  found  that 
the  road  was  pock-marked  here  and  there  with 
shell  holes.  They  began  to  realize  the  impor- 
tance of  silence  then,  for  they  knew  that  where 

255 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

a  shell  had  gone  once  it  could  go  again.  It  was 
necessary  to  walk  carefully,  for  the  road  was 
covered  with  casual  water  in  every  hollow,  and 
there  was  no  seeing  a  hole  until  you  stepped 
in  it.  They  managed,  however,  to  avoid  the 
deeper  holes  and  to  jump  most  of  the  pools. 

That  is,  the  infantry  did.  Late  that  night  a 
teamster  reported  that  he  had  driven  his  four 
mules  into  a  shell  hole  and  broken  the  rear  axle 
of  his  wagon. 

"Why  didn't  you  send  a  man  out  ahead  to 
look  out  for  shell  holes?"  asked  the  officer. 

"I  did,"  said  the  soldier.    "He  fell  in  first." 

Presently  the  marching  men  came  to  the  be- 
ginning of  the  trench  system,  and  they  were 
glad  to  get  a  wall  on  either  side  of  them.  There 
was  no  scramble,  however,  to  be  the  first  man 
in,  and  even  the  major  of  the  battalion  has  for- 
gotten the  name  of  the  first  soldier  to  set  foot 
in  the  French  trenches.  Some  twenty  or  thirty 
men  claim  the  honor,  but  it  will  be  difficult  to 
settle  the  matter  with  historical  accuracy.  A 
INIiddle  Western  farm  boy,  an  Irishman  with 
red  hair  or  a  German-American  would  seem  to 
fit  the  circumstances  best,  but  it's  all  a  matter 

256 


THE  AMERICAN  ARMY 

of  choice.  As  the  Americans  came  in  the 
French  marched  out. 

A  trench  during  a  reHef  is  no  good  place  for 
a  demonstration,  but  some  of  the  poilus  paused 
to  shake  hands  with  the  Americans.  There 
were  rumors  that  one  or  two  doughboys  had 
been  kissed,  but  I  was  unable  to  substantiate 
these  reports.  Probably  they  are  not  true,  for 
it  would  not  be  the  sort  of  thing  a  company 
would  forget. 

Although  the  trenches  for  the  most  part  were 
far  from  the  German  lines,  there  was  noise 
enough  to  attract  attention  over  the  way.  The 
Germans  did  not  seem  to  know  what  was  go- 
ing on,  but  they  wanted  to  know,  and  they  sent 
up  a  number  of  star  shells.  These  are  the 
shells  which  explode  to  release  a  bright  light 
suspended  from  a  little  silk  parachute.  These 
parachutes  hung  in  the  air  for  several  minutes 
and  brightly  illumined  No  Man's  Land.  It 
was  impossible  to  keep  the  Americans  entirely 
quiet  then.  Some  said  "Oh!"  and  others  ex- 
claimed "Ah!"  after  the  manner  of  crowds  at 
a  fire-works  show. 

Persiflage  of  this  kind  helped  to  make  the 
257 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

men  feel  at  home.  Indeed,  the  trenches  did  not 
seem  altogether  unfamiliar,  after  all  their  days 
and  nights  in  the  practice  trenches  back  in 
camp.  The  men  were  a  little  nervous,  though, 
and  took  it  out  in  smoking  one  cigarette  after 
another.  They  shielded  the  light  under  their 
trench  helmets.  After  an  hour  or  so  a  green 
rocket  went  up  and  all  the  soldiers  in  the 
American  trenches  put  on  their  gas  masks. 
They  had  been  drilled  for  weeks  in  getting 
them  on  fast  and  a  green  rocket  was  the  'signal 
agreed  upon  as  the  warning  for  an  attack. 
Presently  the  word  came  from  the  trenches 
that  the  masks  were  not  necessary.  There  had 
been  no  attack.  The  rocket  came  from  the 
German  trenches.  It  was  quiet  then  all  along 
the  short  trench  line  with  the  exception  of  an 
occasional  rifle  shot.  The  wind  was  making 
a  good  deal  of  noise  out  in  the  mess  of  weeds 
just  beyond  the  wire  and  it  sounded  like  Ger- 
mans to  some  of  the  boys.  It  was  clearer  now 
and  a  sharp  eyed  man  could  see  the  stakes  of 
the  wire.     They  were  a  bit  ominous,  too. 

"I  was  looking  at  one  of  those  stakes,"  a 
doughboy  told  me,  "and  I  kept  alooking  and 

258 


THE  AMERICAN  ARMY 

alooking  and  all  of  a  sudden  it  grew  a  pair  of 
shoulders  and  a  helmet  and  I  let  go  at  it." 

There  were  others  who  suffered  from  the 
same  optical  illusion  that  night,  but  let  it  be 
said  to  their  credit  that  when  a  working  party 
eixamined  the  wire  several  days  later  they 
found  some  stakes  which  had  been  riddled 
through  and  through  with  bullets. 


CHAPTER  XX 

TRENCH  LIFE 

They  dragged  the  gun  up  by  hand  to  fire 
the  first  shot  in  the  war  for  the  American  army. 
The  Heutenant  in  charge  of  the  battery  told 
us  about  it.  He  was  standing  on  top  of  the 
gun  emplacement  and  the  historic  seventy-five 
and  a  few  others  were  being  used  every  little 
while  to  fire  other  shots  at  the  German  lines. 
He  had  to  pause,  therefore,  now  and  then  in 
telling  us  history  to  make  a  little  more. 

"I  put  it  up  to  my  men,"  said  the  lieutenant, 
"that  we  would  have  to  wait  a  little  for  the 
horses  and  if  we  wanted  to  be  sure  of  firing  the 
first  shot  it  would  be  a  good  stunt  to  drag  the 
gun  into  place  ourselves.  We  had  a  little  talk 
and  everybody  was  anxious  for  our  battery  to 
get  in  the  first  shot,  so  we  decided  to  go  through 
with  it  and  not  wait  for  the  horses.  We 
dragged  the  gun  up  at  night  and  I  can  tell  you 
that  the  last  mile  and  a  half  took  some  pulling. 

260 


TREXCH  LIFE 

Excuse  me  a  second "    He  leaned  down  to 

the  pit  and  began  to  shout  figures.  He  made 
them  quick  and  snappy  like  a  football  signal 
and  he  looked  exactly  like  a  quarterback  with 
the  tin  hat  on  his  head  which  might  have  been 
a  leather  head  guard.  There  was  a  sort  of 
eagerness  about  him,  too,  as  if  the  ball  was  on 
the  five-yard  line  with  one  minute  more  to  play. 
It  was  all  in  his  manner.  Everything  he  said 
was  professional  enough.  After  the  string  of 
figures  he  shouted  "watch  your  bubble"  and 
then  he  went  on  with  the  story. 

"We  fired  the  first  shot  at  exactly  six  twen- 
ty-seven in  the  morning,"  he  said.  "It  was  a 
shrapnel  shell."  He  turned  to  the  gunners 
again.  "Ready  to  fire,"  he  shouted  down  to  the 
men  in  the  pit.  "You  needn't  put  your  fingers 
in  your  ears  just  yet,"  he  told  us. 

"It  was  pretty  foggy  when  we  got  up  to  the 
front  and  we  thought  first  we'd  just  have  to 
blaze  away  in  the  general  direction  of  the  Ger- 
mans without  any  particular  observation.  But 
all  of  a  sudden  the  fog  lifted  and  right  from 
here  we  could  see  a  bunch  of  Germans  out  fix- 
ing their  wire.    I  gave  'em  shrapnel  and  they 

261 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

scattered  back  to  their  dugouts  like  prairie 
dogs.    It  was  great!" 

The  lieutenant  smiled  at  the  recollection  of 
the  adventure.  It  meant  as  much  to  him  as  a 
sixty-yard  run  in  the  Princeton  game  or  a 
touchdown  against  Yale.  He  was  fortunate 
enough  to  be  still  getting  a  tingle  out  of  the 
war  that  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  cold  wind 
that  was  coming  over  No  Man's  Land.  A 
moment  later  he  grinned  again  and  he  sud- 
denly called,  "Fire,"  and  the  roar  of  the  gun 
under  our  feet  came  quicker  than  we  could  get 
our  fingers  in  our  ears. 

The  gun  had  earned  a  rest  now  and  we  went 
down  and  looked  at  it.  The  gunners  had 
chalked  a  name  on  the  carriage  and  we  found 
that  this  seventy-five  which  fired  the  first  shot 
against  the  Germans  was  called  Heinie.  We 
wanted  to  know  the  name  of  the  man  who  fired 
the  first  shot.  Our  consciences  were  troubling 
us  about  that.  This  was  our  first  day  up  with 
the  guns  in  the  American  sector  and  the  men 
had  been  in  two  days.  There  were  drawbacks 
in  writing  the  war  correspondence  from  a  dis- 
tance as  we  had  been  compelled  to  do  up  to 

262 


TRENCH  LIFE 

this  time.  We'd  heard,  of  course,  that  the  first 
gun  had  been  fired  and  that  made  it  impera- 
tive that  the  story  should  be  "reconstructed,"^ 
as  the  modern  newspaperman  says  when  he's 
writing  about  something  which  he  didn't  see. 
Of  course,  everybody  back  home  would  want  to 
know  who  fired  the  first  shot.  Censorship  pre- 
vented the  use  of  the  name,  but  we  couldn't 
blame  the  censors  for  that,  because  when  we 
wrote  the  stories  we  didn't  know  his  name  or 
anything  about  him.  With  just  one  dissent- 
ing vote  the  correspondents  decided  that  the 
man  who  fired  the  first  shot  must  have  been  a 
red-headed  Irishman.  And  so  it  was  cabled. 
Now  we  wanted  to  know  whether  he  was. 

The  lieutenant  told  us  the  name,  but  that 
didn't  settle  the  question.  It  was  a  more  or 
less  non-committal  name  and  the  officer  volun- 
teered to  find  out  for  us.  He  led  the  party 
over  to  the  mouth  of  another  dugout  and  called 
down:  "Sergeant ,  there's  some  news- 
papermen here  and  they  want  to  know  whether 
you're  Irish." 

Immediately  there  was  a  scrambling  noise 
263 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

down  in  the  dugout  and  up  came  the  gunner  on 
the  run.    "I  am  not,"  he  said. 

"Haven't  you  got  an  Irish  father  or  mother 
or  aren't  any  of  your  people  Irish?"  asked  one 
of  the  correspondents  hopefully.  He  was  com- 
mitted to  the  red-headed  story  and  he  was  not 
prepared  to  give  up  yet.  "Not  one  of  'em," 
said  the  sergeant,  "I  haven't  got  a  drop  of  Irish 
blood  in  me.  I  come  from  South  Bend,  In- 
diana." 

The  party  left  the  gunner  rather  discon- 
solately. That  is,  all  but  the  hopeful  corre- 
spondent. "He's  Irish,  all  right,"  he  said. 
We  turned  on  the  optimist. 

"Didn't  you  hear  him  say  he  wasn't  Irish?" 
we  shouted. 

"Oh,  that's  all  right,"  answered  the  optimist, 
"you  didn't  expect  he  was  going  to  admit  it. 
They  never  do." 

"Say,"  inquired  another  reporter,  "did  any- 
body notice  what  was  the  color  of  the  sergeant's 
hair?" 

I  had,  but  I  said  nothing.  There  had  been 
disillusion  enough  for  one  day.  It  was  black 
with  a  little  gray  around  the  temples. 

264 


TRENCH  LIFE 

The  lieutenant  took  us  to  his  dugout  and  we 
tried  to  get  some  copy  out  of  hini.  A  man  from 
an  evening  newspaper  spoiled  our  chances 
right  away. 

"I  suppose,"  he  said,  "that  you  made  a  little 
speech  to  the  men  before  they  fired  that  first 
shot?" 

The  little  lieutenant  was  professional  in  an 
instant.  He  felt  a  sudden  fear  that  his  man- 
ner or  his  youth  had  led  us  to  picture  him  as  a 
romantic  figure. 

"What  would  I  make  a  speech  for?"  he  in- 
quired coldly. 

"Well,"  said  the  reporter,  "I  should  think 
you'd  want  to  say  something.  You  were  go- 
ing to  fire  the  first  shot  of  the  war,  and  more 
than  that,  you  were  going  to  fire  the  first  shot 
in  anger  which  the  American  army  has  ever 
fired  in  Europe.  Of  course,  I  didn't  mean  a 
speech  exactly,  but  you  must  have  said  some- 
thing." 

"No,"  answered  the  officer,  "I  just  gave  'em 
the  range  and  then  I  said  'ready  to  fire'  and 
then,  'fire.'  It  was  just  like  this  afternoon. 
We  made  it  perfectly  regular." 

265 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

"In  the  army  a  thing  like  that's  just  part  of 
the  day's  work,"  tlie  lieutenant  added,  with  an 
attempted  assumption  of  great  sophistication 
in  regard  to  war  matters,  as  if  this  was  at  least 
his  twentieth  campaign. 

And  yet  I  think  that  if  we  had  heard  our  lit- 
tle quarterback  give  his  order  at  six  twenty- 
seven  on  that  misty  morning  there  would  have 
been  something  in  his  voice  when  he  said  "fire" 
which  would  have  betrayed  him  to  us.  I  think 
it  must  have  been  a  little  sharper,  a  little  faster 
and  a  little  louder  for  this  first  shot  than  it 
will  be  when  he  calls  "fire"  for  the  thousand- 
and-tenth  round. 

The  guns  had  decided  to  call  it  a  day  by  this 
time  and  so  we  headed  for  the  trenches.  We 
had  to  travel  across  a  big  bare  stretch  of  coun- 
try which  was  wind-swept  and  rain-soaked  on 
this  particular  afternoon.  Every  now  and  then 
somebody  fell  into  a  shell  hole,  for  the  meadow 
was  well  slashed  up,  although  there  didn't  seem 
to  be  anything  much  to  shoot  at.  On  the  whole, 
the  sector  chosen  for  the  first  Americans  in  the 
trenches  might  well  be  called  a  quiet  front. 
There  was  shelling  back  and  forth  each  day, 

266 


TRENCH  LIFE 

but  many  places  were  immune.  Some  villages 
just  back  of  the  French  lines  had  not  been 
fired  at  for  almost  a  year,  although  they  were 
within  easy  range  of  field  pieces,  and  the 
French  in  return  didn't  fire  at  villages  in  the 
German  lines.  This  was  by  tacit  agreement. 
Both  sides  had  held  the  lines  in  this  part  of  the 
country  lightly  and  both  sides  were  content  to 
sit  tight  and  not  stir  up  trouble. 

Things  livened  up  after  the  Americans  came 
in  because  the  Germans  soon  found  out  that 
new  troops  were  opposing  them  and  they 
wanted  to  identify  the  units.  Some  of  the  in- 
creasing liveliness  was  also  due  to  the  fact  that 
American  gunners  were  anxious  to  get  prac- 
tice and  fired  much  more  than  the  French  had 
done.  Indeed,  an  American  officer  earned  a 
rebuke  from  his  superiors  because  he  fired  into 
a  German  village  which  had  been  hitherto  im- 
mune. This  w^as  a  mistake,  for  the  Germans 
immediately  retaliated  by  shelling  a  French 
village  and  the  civilian  population  was  forced 
to  move  out.  For  more  than  a  year  they  had 
lived  close  to  the  battle  lines  in  comparative 
safety.     On    the    night  the  American  troops 

267 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

moved  in  to  the  trenches  a  baby  was  born  in  a 
village  less  than  a  mile  from  one  of  our  bat- 
talion headquarters.  Major  General  Sibert 
became  her  godfather  and  the  child  was  chris- 
tened Unis  in  honor  of  Les  Etats  Unis. 

The  increase  in  artillery  activity  had  hardly 
begun  on  the  day  we  paid  our  visit.  No  Ger- 
man shells  fell  near  us  as  we  crossed  the 
meadow,  but  when  we  reached  a  battalion 
headquarters  the  major  in  charge  pointed  with 
pride  to  a  German  shell  which  had  landed  on 
top  of  his  kitchen  that  morning.  The  rain  had 
played  him  a  good  service,  for  the  shell  simply 
buried  itself,  fragments  and  all.  He  did  not 
seem  properly  appreciative  of  the  weather. 
"All  Gaul,"  he  said,  "is  divided  into  three  parts 
and  two  of  them  are  water." 

Still,  we  found  ourselves  drier  in  the  trenches 
than  out  of  them.  They  were  floored  with 
boards  and  well  lined.  As  trenches  go  they 
were  good,  but,  of  course,  that  isn't  saying  a 
great  deal.  We  were  the  first  newspapermen 
to  enter  the  American  trenches  and  so  we 
wanted  to  see  the  first  line,  although  it  was 
growing  dark.    We  wound  around  and  around 

268 


TRENCH  LIFE 

for  many  yards  and  it  was  hard  walking  for 
some  of  us,  as  the  French  had  built  these 
trenches  for  short  men.  It  was  necessary  to 
walk  with  a  crouch  like  an  Indian  on  the  movie 
warpath.  This  was  according  to  instructions, 
but  we  may  have  been  unduly  cautious,  for  not 
a  hostile  shot  was  fired  while  we  were  in  the 
first  line.  It  was  barely  possible  to  see  the 
German  trenches  through  the  mist  and  still 
more  difficult  to  realize  that  there  was  a  men- 
ace in  the  untidy  welts  of  mud  which  lay  at  the 
other  side  of  the  meadow.  But  the  point  from 
which  we  looked  across  to  the  German  line  was 
the  very  salient  where  the  Germans  made  their 
first  raid  a  week  later  and  captured  twelve  men, 
killed  three,  and  wounded  five. 

The  doughboys  wouldn't  let  us  go  without 
pointing  out  all  the  sights.  To  the  right  was 
the  apple  tree.  Here  the  Germans  used  to 
come  on  Mondays,  Wednesdays  and  Fridays 
and  the  French  on  Tuesdays,  Thursdays  and 
Saturdays,  and  gather  fruit  without  molesta- 
tion so  long  as  not  more  than  two  came  at  a 
time.  This  was  another  tacit  agreement  in  this 
quiet  front,  for  the  tree  was  in  easy  rifle  range. 

269 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

One  of  the  dougliboj^s  unwittingly  broke  that 
custom  by  taking  a  shot  at  two  Germans  who 
went  to  get  apples. 

"I  like  apples  myself,"  he  said,  "and  I  just 
couldn't  lie  still  and  watch  a  squarehead  carry 
them  away  by  the  armful." 

The  Hindenburg  Rathskeller  lay  to  the  left 
of  our  trench,  but  it  was  only  dimly  visible 
through  the  rain.  This  battered  building  was 
once  a  tiny  roadside  cafe.  Now  patrols  take 
shelter  behind  its  walls  at  night  and  try  to  find 
cheer  in  the  room  where  only  a  few  broken 
bottles  remain.  The  j)oilus  maintain  that  on 
dark  nights  the  ghosts  of  cognac,  of  burgundy 
and  even  champagne  flit  about  in  and  out  of 
the  broken  windows  and  that  a  lucky  soldier 
may  sometimes  detect,  by  an  inner  warmth  and 
tingle,  the  ghost  of  some  drink  that  is  gone. 
Sometimes  it  is  a  German  patrol  which  spends 
the  night  in  No  Man's  Cafe.  It  is  more  or  less 
a  custom  to  allow  whichever  side  gets  to  the 
cafe  first  to  hold  it  for  the  night,  since  it  is  a 
strong  defensive  position  in  the  dark.  The 
night  before  our  visit  an  American  patrol 
reached  the  cafe  and  found  that  the  Germans 

270 


TRENCH  LIFE 

who  had  been  there  the  night  before  had  placed 
above  the  shattered  door  of  the  little  inn  a 
sign  which  read:  "Hindenburg  Rathskeller." 
Silently  but  swiftly  one  of  the  doughboys 
scratched  out  the  name  with  a  pencil  and  left 
a  sign  of  his  own.  When  next  the  Germans 
came  they  found  that  Hindenburg's  Rathskel- 
ler had  become  the  Baltimore  Dairy  Lunch. 

Several  hundred  yards  behind  the  Baltimore 
Dairy  Lunch  is  another  ruined  house  and  it 
was  here  that  the  Americans  killed  their  first 
German.  Even  on  clear  days  Germans  in 
groups  of  not  more  than  two  would  sometimes 
come  from  their  trenches  to  the  house.  The 
French  thought  that  they  had  a  machine  gun 
there,  but  it  was  not  worth  while  to  waste 
shells  on  parties  of  one  or  two  and  as  the  range 
was  almost  1700  yards  the  Germans  felt  com- 
paratively immune  from  rifle  fire.  Two  dough- 
boys saw  a  German  walking  along  the  road 
one  bright  morning  and  as  they  had  telescopic 
sights  on  their  rifles  they  were  anxious  to  try 
a  shot.  One  of  the  men  was  a  sergeant  and 
the  other  a  corporal. 

"That's  my  German,"  said  the  sergeant. 
271 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

"I  saw  him  first,"  objected  the  corporal,  and 
so  they  agreed  to  count  five  and  then  fire  to- 
gether. One  or  both  of  them  hit  him,  for  down 
he  came. 

When  we  got  back  to  the  second  line  the  men 
were  having  supper.  The  food  supplied  to  the 
soldiers  in  the  trenches  was  hot  and  adequate 
and  moderately  abundant.  A  few  of  the  men 
complained  that  they  got  only  two  meals  a 
day,  but  I  found  that  there  was  an  early  ration 
of  coif  ee  and  bread  which  these  soldiers  did  not 
count  as  enough  of  a  breakfast  to  be  mentioned 
as  a  meal.  This  comes  at  dawn  and  then  there 
are  meals  at  about  eleven  and  five.  One  of  the 
men  with  whom  I  talked  was  mournful. 

"We  don't  get  anything  much  but  slum," 
he  said,  when  I  asked  him,  "How's  the  food?" 
That  did  not  sound  appetizing  until  I  found 
out  that  slum  was  a  stew  made  of  beef  and 
potatoes  and  carrots  and  lots  of  onions.  We 
ate  some  and  it  was  very  good,  but  perhaps  it 
does  pall  a  little  after  the  third  or  fourth  day. 
It  forms  the  main  staple  of  army  diet  in  the 
trenches,  for  it  is  not  possible  to  give  the  men 
in  the  line  any  great  variety  of  food.    The  most 

272 


TRENCH  LIFE 

tragic  story  in  connection  with  food  which  we 
heard  concerned  a  company  which  was  just 
beginning  dinner  when  a  gas  alarm  was 
sounded.  The  men  had  been  carefully  trained 
to  drop  everything  and  adjust  their  masks 
when  this  alarm  was  sounded.  So  down  went 
their  mess  tins,  spilling  slum  on  the  trench  floor 
as  the  masks  Mere  quickly  fastened.  Five  min- 
utes later  word  came  that  the  gas  alarm  was  a 
mistake. 

Before  we  left  we  saw  a  patrol  start  out. 
The  doughboys  took  to  patrolling  eagerly  and 
oflScers  who  asked  for  volunteers  were  always 
swamped  with  requests  from  men  who  wanted 
to  go.  One  lieutenant  was  surprised  to  have 
a  large  fat  cook  come  to  him  to  say  that  he 
would  not  be  happy  unless  allowed  to  make  a 
trip  across  No  Man's  Land  to  the  German 
wire.  When  the  officer  asked  him  why  he  was 
so  anxious  to  go,  he  said:  "Well,  you  see,  I 
promised  to  get  a  German  helmet  and  an  over- 
coat for  a  girl  for  Christmas  and  I  haven't  got 
much  time  left." 

It  was  dark  when  we  left  the  trenches  and 
started  cross  country.    The  German  guns  had 

273 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

begun  to  fire  a  little.  They  were  spasmodically 
shelling  a  clump  of  woods  half  a  mile  away  and 
seemed  indifferent  to  correspondents.  But  by 
this  time  the  weather  was  actively  hostile.  The 
rain  had  changed  to  snow  and  the  wind  had 
risen  to  a  gale.  Every  shell  hole  had  become 
a  trap  to  catch  the  unwary  and  wet  him  to  the 
waist.  Little  brooks  were  carrying  on  like 
rivers  and  amateur  lakes  were  everywhere. 
We  walked  and  walked  and  suddenly  the 
French  lieutenant  who  was  guiding  us  paused 
and  explained  that  he  hadn't  the  least  idea 
where  we  were.  Nothing  could  be  seen  through 
the  driving  snow  and  there  was  no  certainty 
that  we  hadn't  turned  completely  around.  We 
wondered  if  there  were  any  gaps  in  the  wire 
and  if  it  would  be  possible  to  walk  into  the 
German  lines  by  mistake.  We  also  wondered 
whether  the  Kaiser's  three  hundred  marks  for 
the  first  American  would  stand  if  the  pris- 
oner was  only  a  reporter.  Just  then  there  was 
a  sudden  sharp  rift  in  the  mist  ahead  of  us.  A 
big  flash  cut  through  the  snow  and  fog  and 
after  a  second  we  heard  a  bang  behind  us. 
"Those  are  American  guns,"  said  our  guide, 
274 


TRENCH  LIFE 

and  we  made  for  them.  We  were  lost  again 
once  or  twice,  but  each  time  we  just  stood  and 
waited  for  the  flash  from  the  battery  until  we 
reached  our  base.  Shortly  after  we  arrived 
the  shelling  ceased.  There  was  hardly  a  war- 
like sound.  It  was  a  quiet  night  on  a  tran- 
quil front.  The  w^eather  was  too  bad  even  for 
fighting. 

We  went  to  the  hospital  in  the  little  town 
and  were  allowed  to  look  at  the  first  German 
prisoner.  He  was  a  pretty  sick  boy  when  we 
saw  him.  He  gave  his  age  when  examined  as 
nineteen,  but  he  looked  younger  and  not  very 
dangerous,  for  he  was  just  coming  out  of  the 
ether.  The  American  doctors  were  giving  him 
the  best  of  care.  He  had  a  room  to  himself  and 
his  own  nurse.  The  doughboys  had  captured 
him  close  to  the  American  wire.  There  had 
been  great  rivalry  as  to  which  company  would 
get  the  first  prisoner,  but  he  came  almost  un- 
sought. The  patrol  was  back  to  its  own  wire 
when  the  soldiers  heard  the  noise  of  somebody 
moving  about  to  the  left.  He  was  making  no 
effort  to  walk  quietly.  As  he  came  over  a  little 
hillock  his  outline  could  be  seen  for  a  second 

275 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

and  one  of  the  Americans  called  out  to  him  to 
halt.  He  turned  and  started  to  run,  but  a 
doughboy  fired  and  hit  him  in  the  leg  and  an- 
other soldier's  bullet  came  through  his  back. 
The  patrol  carried  the  prisoner  to  the  trench. 
He  seemed  much  more  dazed  by  surprise  than 
by  the  pain  of  his  wounds.  "You're  not 
French,"  he  said  several  times  as  the  curious 
Americans  gathered  about  him  in  a  close,  dim 
circle  illuminated  by  pocket  flash  lamps.  The 
prisoner  next  guessed  that  they  were  English 
and  when  the  soldiers  told  him  that  they  were 
Americans  he  said  that  he  and  his  comrades 
did  not  know  that  Americans  were  in  the  line 
opposite  them.  Somebody  gave  him  a  cigar- 
ette and  he  grew  more  chipper  in  spite  of  his 
wounds.  He  began  to  talk,  saying:  "Ich  bin 
ein  esel." 

There  were  several  Americans  who  had 
enough  German  for  that  and  they  asked  him 
why.  The  prisoner  explained  that  he  had  been 
assigned  to  deliver  letters  to  the  soldiers.  Some 
of  the  letters  were  for  men  in  a  distant  trench 
which  slanted  toward  the  French  line,  and  so 
to  save  time  he  had  taken  a  short  cut  through 

276 


TRENCH  LIFE 

No  Man's  Land.  It  was  a  dark  night  but  he 
thought  he  knew  the  way.  He  kept  bearing 
to  the  left.  Now,  he  said,  he  knew  he  should 
have  turned  to  the  right.  He  said  it  would 
be  a  lesson  to  him.  The  next  morning  w^e 
heard  that  the  German  had  died  and  would  be 
buried  with  full  military  honors. 

There  was  another  patient  whom  we  were 
interested  in  seeing.  Lieutenant  Devere  H. 
Harden  was  the  first  American  officer  wounded 
in  the  war.  His  wound  was  not  a  very  bad 
one  and  the  doctors  allowed  us  to  crowd  about 
his  bed  and  ask  questions.  In  spite  of  the 
British  saying,  "you  never  hear  a  shell  that  hits 
you,"  Harden  said  he  both  saw  and  heard  his 
particular  shell.  He  thought  it  would  have 
scored  a  direct  hit  on  his  head  if  he  had  not  fal- 
len flat.  As  it  was  the  projectile  exploded  al- 
most fifty  feet  away  from  him  and  his  wound 
was  caused  by  a  fragment  which  flew  back  and 
lodged  behind  his  knee.  He  did  not  know  that 
he  had  been  hit,  but  sought  shelter  in  a  dug- 
out. Just  as  he  got  to  the  door  he  felt  a  pain 
in  his  knee  and  fell  over.  He  noticed  then  that 
his   leg  was   bleeding  a  little.    A  French  of- 

277 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

ficer  ran  over  to  him  and  said:  "You  are  a  very 
lucky  man." 

"Plow  is  that?"  asked  Harden. 

"Why,  you're  the  first  American  to  be 
wounded  and  I'm  going  to  recommend  to  the 
general  that  he  put  up  a  tablet  right  here  with 
your  name  on  it  and  the  date  and  'first  Amer- 
ican to  shed  his  blood  for  France.'  " 

The  thought  of  the  tablet  didn't  cheer  the 
lieutenant  up  half  so  much  as  when  we  pre- 
vailed on  the  doctors  to  let  him  take  some 
cigarettes  from  us  and  begin  smoking  again. 
By  this  time  we  had  almost  forgotten  about 
the  slum  of  earlier  in  the  evening  and  so  we 
stopped  at  the  first  cafe  we  came  to  on  the 
road  back  to  the  correspondents'  headquar- 
ters. Several  American  soldiers  were  sitting 
around  a  small  stove  in  the  kitchen,  and  al- 
though they  said  nothing,  an  old  woman  was 
cooking  omelettes  and  small  steaks  and  dis- 
tributing them  about  to  the  rightful  owners 
without  the  slightest  mistake.  At  least  there 
were  no  complaints.  Perhaps  the  doughboys 
were  afraid  of  the  old  woman  for  whenever  one 
of  them  got  in  her  way  she  would  say  nothing 

278 


TRENCH  LIFE 

but  push  him  violently  in  the  chest  with  both 
hands.  He  would  then  step  back  and  the  cook- 
ing would  go  on. 

Presently  a  noisy  soldier  came  roaring  into 
the  kitchen.  It  took  him  just  half  a  minute 
to  get  acquainted  and  about  that  much  more 
time  to  tell  us  that  he  was  driving  a  four  mule 
team  with  rations.  We  asked  him  if  he  had 
gotten  near  the  front  and  he  snorted  scorn- 
fully. He  told  us  that  the  night  before  he 
had  almost  driven  into  the  German  lines.  Ac- 
cording to  his  story,  he  lost  his  way  in  the 
dark  and  drove  past  the  third  line  trench,  the 
second  line  and  the  first  line  and  started  rum- 
bling along  an  old  road  which  cut  straight 
across  No  Man's  Land  and  into  the  German 
hnes. 

"I  was  going  along,"  he  said,  "and  a  dough- 
boy out  in  a  listening  post,  I  guess  it  must 
have  been,  jumped  up  and  waved  both  his 
hands  at  me  to  go  back.  'What's  the  matter?' 
I  asked  him,  just  natural,  like  I'm  talking  to 
you,  and  he  just  mumbles  at  me.  'You're  go- 
ing right  toward  the  German  lines,'  he  says. 

279 


THE  A.  E.  F. 


'For  God's  sake  turn  round  and  go  back  and 
don't  speak  above  a  whisper.' 

"  'Whisper,  Hell !'  I  says  to  him,  kind  of 
mad,  'I  gotta  turn  four  mules  around.'  " 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE  VETERANS  RETURN 

When  the  first  contingent  of  doughboys 
came  out  of  the  trenches  I  went  to  a  French 
officer  whom  I  knew  well  and  asked  him  what 
he  thought  of  the  Americans.  ^ 

"Remember,"  I  told  him,  "I  don't  want  you; 
to  dress  up  an  opinion  for  me.  Tell  me  what 
you  really  thought  of  our  men  when  you  saw 
them  up  there.  What  did  the  French  say 
about  them?" 

"Truly,  I  think  they  are  very  good,"  the 
Frenchman  told  me.  Then  he  corrected  him- 
self. "I  mean  I  think  they  will  be  very  good. 
They  are  something  like  the  Canadians.  They 
were  pretty  jumpy  at  first,  but  that  doesn't  do 
any  harm.  The  soldiers  up  there,  they  wanted 
to  fire  when  the  grass  was  moving  and  they  did 
sometimes,  without  getting  any  orders.  They 
got  over  that  pretty  soon.    By  the  third  night 

281 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

they  were  pretty  well  settled.  Of  course,  they 
can  shoot  better  than  our  men  and  they  are 
bigger  and  stronger,  but  in  some  things  we 
have  the  advantage.  You  Americans  are  much 
more  excitable  than  we  French." 

As  a  rule  French  and  British  officers  were 
inclined  to  be  optimistic  about  the  Americans. 
They  were  impressed  by  their  physique.  The 
first  of  the  Canadians  were  probably  a  little 
huskier  than  the  Americans  and  the  early  con- 
tingents of  Australians  and  New  Zealanders 
were  at  least  as  good,  but  now  all  the  rest  are 
falling  off  in  their  physical  standards  on  ac- 
count of  losses,  while  the  most  recent  Amer- 
ican arrivals  in  France  are  better  than  any  of 
our  earlier  contingents. 

The  American  is  potentially  a  good  soldier, 
but  it  is  a  long  cry  of  preeminence.  Any  na- 
tion which  establishes  itself  as  the  best  in  the 
field  will  have  to  perform  marvelous  deeds. 
The  chances  are  that  nobody  will  touch  the 
high  water  mark  of  the  French.  After  all,  in 
her  finest  moments,  France  has  a  positive 
genius  for  warfare.  Her  best  troops  possess 
a  combination  of  patience  in  defense  and  dash 

282 


THE  VETERANS  RETURN 

in  attack.  France  has  a  fighting  tradition 
which  we  do  not  possess.  We  must  gain  that 
before  we  can  rival  her. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  newspaper- 
man the  Frenchman  is  the  ideal  soldier  of  the 
world.  Not  only  can  he  fight,  but  he  can  tell 
you  about  it.  There  is  no  trouble  in  getting 
a  poilu  to  talk.  He  has  opinions  on  every  sub- 
ject under  the  sun.  The  only  difficulty  is  in 
understanding  him  once  you  have  got  him 
started.  The  doughboys,  on  the  other  hand, 
are  usually  reticent.  They're  alwa^^s  afraid  of 
being  detected  in  some  sentimental  or  heroic 
pose  and  so  they  adopt  a  belittling  attitude  to- 
ward anything  which  happens  as  protection. 
The  first  men  who  came  back  from  the  trenches 
were  not  quite  like  that.  These  doughboys 
were  more  like  Rossetti's  angels.  "The  won- 
der was  not  yet  quite  gone  from  that  still  look" 
of  theirs. 

They  did  not  minimize  their  experiences.  I 
think  I  understand  now  what  Secretary  Baker 
meant  when  he  said  that  some  of  the  most 
thrilling  stories  of  the  war  would  come  in  let- 
ters from  the  soldiers.    We  went  to  the  major 

283 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

of  a  battalion  which  had  just  come  back  from 
the  front  to  its  billets. 

"No,  nothing  much  happened  while  we  were 
up  there,"  he  said.  "They  didn't  shell  us  very- 
hard;  they  didn't  try  any  raids  or  any  gas  and 
the  aeroplanes  let  us  alone." 

Then  we  tried  the  soldiers.  "Yes,  sir,  we 
certainly  did  see  some  aeroplanes,"  said  a 
doughboy.  "Why,  one  day  there  was  two 
hundred  and  twenty-five  flew  over  my  head. 
I  think  the  French  brought  down  twenty  of 
them,  but  I  didn't  see  that."  Another  told 
how  two  hundred  and  fifty  Germans  had 
started  to  attack  the  Americans.  "Our  ar- 
tillery put  a  barrage  on  them  and  in  a  couple 
of  minutes  all  but  three  of  them  were  dead." 

"Did  you  see  those  Germans  yourself?"  we 
asked  him  sternly. 

"No,"  he  admitted,  "it  was  a  little  bit  down 
to  our  left  but  I  heard  about  it." 

There  were  other  stories  which  may  have 
grown  in  the  telling,  but  they  sounded  more 
plausible.  One  concerned  a  soldier  who  had 
his  hyphen  shot  away  at  the  front.  This  man 
was  of  German  parentage  and  his  father  was 

284 


THE  VETERANS  RETURN 

in  the  German  army.  Before  he  went  to  the 
trenches  he  used  to  dwell  on  what  a  terrible 
thing  it  was  for  him  to  be  fighting  against  his 
father  and  Fatherland.  He  declared  that  if  it 
were  possible  he  was  going  to  play  a  passive 
part  in  the  war.  But  in  the  course  of  time  he 
went  into  the  first  line  and  no  sooner  was  he 
in  than  he  peeked  over  the  top  to  have  a  look 
at  the  folks  from  the  old  home.  "Pat,  pat, 
pat!"  a  stream  of  bullets  from  a  machine  gun 
went  by  his  head.  The  German-American 
gave  a  grunt  of  surprise  and  then  a  yell  of  rage 
and  jumped  over  the  parapet  and  began  firing 
his  rifle  in  the  direction  of  the  machine  gun. 
He  must  have  made  a  lucky  hit  for  by  some 
chance  or  other  the  machine  gun  ceased  fir- 
ing and  the  doughboy  crawled  back  into  the 
trench  unharmed.  He  was  still  mad  and  kept 
mumbling,  "I  didn't  do  anything  but  look  at 
'em  and  they  went  and  shot  at  me." 

A  story  better  authenticated  concerns  a 
visit  which  General  Pershing  paid  to  the 
trenches.  A  young  captain  took  his  responsi- 
bilities much  to  heart  and  wanted  to  leave 
nothing  to  his  subordinates.     He  was  on  the 

285 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

rush  constantly  from  one  point  to  another  and 
at  the  end  of  fifty-two  hours  of  unceasing  tofl. 
he  went  to  his  dugout  to  get  three  hours'  sleep. 
He  had  hardly  started  to  snore  when  there 
was  a  knock  and  a  doughboy  came  in  to  com- 
plain that  he  had  sore  feet  and  what  should  he 
do.  A  few  minutes  later  it  was  another  who 
wanted  to  know  where  he  could  get  additional 
candles.  Rid  of  him,  the  captain  really  be- 
gan to  sleep,  only  to  be  awakened  by  a  knock 
at  the  door  and  a  voice,  "Is  this  the  company 
commander?" 

"Yes,"  said  the  irritated  captain,  "and  what 
the  hell  do  you  want?" 

The  door  opened  and  the  strictest  disci- 
plinarian in  the  American  army  permitted 
himself  the  shadow  of  a  smile.  "I'm  General 
Pershing,"  he  said. 

One  battalion  came  back  from  the  front  with 
an  additional  member.  He  was  a  large  dog 
of  uncertain  breed  who  had  deserted  from  the 
German  lines.  At  least  it  was  hard  to  say 
whether  he  belonged  to  the  German  army  or 
the  French.  The  French  first  saw  him  one 
afternoon  when  he  came  lumbering  across  No 

286 


THE  \^TERANS  RETURN 

Man's  Land  and  pushed  himself  through  the 
wire  in  a  place  where  it  had  grown  a  bit  slack. 
One  French  soldier  fired  at  him.  The  poilu 
thought  it  might  be  a  new  trick  of  the  Ger- 
mans. For  all  he  knew  a  couple  of  Bodies 
might  have  been  concealed  inside  the  big 
hound.  He  was  no  marksman,  this  soldier, 
for  he  missed  the  dog  who  promptly  turned 
sharply  to  the  left  and  came  in  at  another 
point  in  the  trenches.  The  soldiers  made  him 
welcome  although  there  was  some  discussion 
as  to  what  his  nationality  might  be.  It  was 
evident  that  he  had  come  across  from  the  Ger- 
man lines,  but  it  was  possible  that  he  was  a 
French  dog  captured  in  one  of  the  villages 
which  fell  to  the  invaders.  The  men  in  the 
front  line  tried  him  with  all  the  German  they 
knew — "You  German  pig,"  "what's  your 
regiment?"  "damn  the  Kaiser,"  "to  BerHn," 
and  a  few  others.  He  indicated  no  under- 
standing of  the  phrases.  Later  he  was  taken 
further  back  and  examined  at  length  by  an 
intelligence  officer  but  no  single  German  word 
could  be  found  which  he  seemed  to  recognize. 
On  the  other  hand  it  was  ascertained  that  he 

287 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

was  equally  ignorant  of  French.  However, 
he  understood  signs,  would  bark  for  a  bone 
and  never  missed  an  invitation  to  eat. 

During  the  first  week  of  his  stay  the  sol- 
diers were  generous  in  giving  him  a  share  of 
their  rations.  Later  he  became  an  old  friend 
and  did  not  fare  so  wxU.  One  night  he  dis- 
appeared and  an  outpost  saw  him  lumbering 
back  to  the  German  lines.  The  Boches  were 
out  on  patrol  that  night  and  apparently  the 
big  dog  reached  their  lines  without  being  fired 
upon.  He  was  gone  three  weeks  and  then  he 
returned  for  a  long  stay  with  the  French.  So 
it  went  on.  He  never  affiliated  himself  per- 
manently with  either  army  and  he  never  gave 
away  secrets.  Possibly  his  coming  gave  some 
sign  of  declining  morale  across  the  way  for 
when  the  men  became  cross  and  testy  the  big 
dog  simply  changed  sides.  There  was  never 
any  indication  that  he  had  been  underfed  even 
when  rumors  were  strongest  about  the  food 
shortage  in  Germany.  The  Boches  took  a 
pride  in  belying  these  stories,  as  best  they 
could,  by  keeping  the  hound  sleek  and  fat. 

The  French  called  him  Quatre  Cent  Vingt 
288 


THE  VETERANS  RETURN 

after  the  big  gun  but  nobody  knew  for  cer- 
tain his  German  alias.  Once  when  he  left  the 
German  lines  in  broad  daylight  the  Boches  all 
along  the  line  were  heard  whistling  for  him 
to  come  back,  but  no  one  called  him  by  name. 
The  French  chose  to  believe  that  across  the 
way  he  was  known  as  "Kamerad,"  but  there 
was  no  evidence  on  this  point.  It  is  true  that 
he  would  stand  on  his  hind  legs  and  wave  his 
paws  when  anybody  said  "Kamerad,"  but  this 
was  a  trick  and  took  teaching. 

He  must  have  heard  somehow  or  other 
about  the  coming  of  the  Americans  for  he  left 
the  Germans  at  noon  one  day  when  the  dough- 
boys had  hardly  become  settled  in  their  new 
home.  A  French  interpreter  vouched  for  him 
and  he  was  allowed  free  access  to  third  line, 
second  line,  first  line  and,  what  he  valued 
much  more,  to  the  company  kitchen.  Here 
for  the  first  time  he  tasted  slum.  Soldiers 
are  fond  of  belittling  this  combination  of  beef, 
onions,  potatoes  and  carrots  but  Quatre  Cent 
Vingt  was  frank  in  his  admiration  of  the  dish. 
Naturally,  free-born  American  citizens  could 
not  be  expected  to  know  hun  by  his  outlandish 

289 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

French  name  or  any  abbreviation  of  it  and  he 
became  Big  Ed  in  honor  of  the  mess  sergeant. 
Hitherto  Quatre  Cent  Vingt  had  been  careful 
to  show  no  favors.  He  had  been  the  com- 
pany's dog  but  he  became  so  distinctly  partial 
to  the  mess  sergeant  that  the  soldier  took  him 
over  as  his  own  and  when  the  company  went 
away  Quatre  Cent  Vingt  went  too,  following 
closely  behind  a  rolling  kitchen. 

The  experience  in  the  trenches  made  Amer- 
ican soldiers  a  little  more  expressive  than  they 
had  been  before  but  the  national  character  re- 
mained baffling.  As  a  nation  we  unquestion- 
ably have  personality  but  our  army  is  some- 
what lacking  in  this  quality  even  among  its 
leaders.  Pershing  is  a  personality,  of  course, 
and  Bullard  and  Sibert  and  March,  but  for  the 
rest  all  major  generals  seemed  much  alike  to 
us.  Sibert  we  remembered  because  he  was  a 
quiet,  kindly  man  who  got  the  things  he  wanted 
without  much  fuss.  He  was  among  the  think- 
ers of  the  army.  Mostly  he  was  listening  to 
other  people,  but  when  he  talked  he  wasted  no 
words.  Undoubtedly  he  was  one  of  the  best 
loved  men  in  the  army  for  he  combined  with 

290 


THE  VETERANS  RETURN 

his  efficiency  and  his  kindliness  an  occasional 
playful  flash  of  humor.  I  remember  a  visit 
which  three  American  newspaperwomen  paid 
to  him  one  day  at  his  headquarters.  The  con- 
versation had  scarcely  begun  when  one  of  the 
women  somewhat  tactlessly  remarked,  "Gen- 
eral, this  is  a  young  man's  war,  isn't  it?" 

General  Sibert  is  husky  enough  but  he  is  a 
bit  gray  and  he  smiled  quizzically  as  he  looked 
at  his  questioner  over  the  top  of  a  big  pair  of 
horn-rimmed  glasses. 

"When  I  was  a  cadet  at  West  Point,"  said 
General  Sibert,  "I  used  to  console  myself  with 
the  thought  that  Napoleon  was  winning  bat- 
tles when  he  was  thirty.  Now,  I  find  that  my 
mind  dwells  more  on  the  fact  that  Hindenburg 
is  seventy." 

Robert  H.  Bullard  is  probably  the  most  pic- 
turesque figure  in  the  American  army.  He 
has  a  reputation  as  a  fighter  and  a  daredevil 
and  he  is  still  one  of  the  best  polo  players  and 
broadsword  experts  in  the  American  army. 
They  say  that  when  a  second  lieutenant  swore 
at  him  one  day  in  the  heat  of  a  game  he  made 
no  complaint  but  laid  for  the  young  man  later 

291 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

on  and  sent  hini  sprawling  off  his  horse  in  a 
iwild  scrimmage.  He  will  fight  broadsword 
duels  with  anybody  regardless  of  rank  if  his 
opponent  promises  to  be  a  man  who  can  test 
his  mettle.  And  yet  it  was  a  bit  surprising 
that  when  the  command  of  one  of  the  crack 
divisions  in  France  was  open,  General  Persh- 
ing chose  Bullard  for  the  command  because 
Major  General  Robert  H.  Bullard  is  perhaps 
the  worst  dressed  major  general  in  the  Amer- 
ican army.  A  poilu  in  one  of  the  provincial 
cities  mistook  him  for  an  American  enlisted 
man  and  talked  to  him  with  great  freedom  for 
more  than  half  an  hour  before  an  excited 
French  officer  rushed  up  and  told  him  that  the 
man  with  whom  he  was  talking  so  familiarly 
was  an  American  general. 

"Oh,  that's  all  right,"  said  Bullard,  "I 
wanted  to  hear  what  he  had  to  say.  Come 
around  to  my  headquarters  sometime  and  tell 
me  some  more." 

On  another  occasion  I  saw  an  American 
captain  suffer  acutely  because  Bullard  ap- 
peared at  a  public  Franco- American  function 
with  two  days'  growth  of  beard.    "What  kind 

292 


THE  VETERANS  RETURN 

of  an  aide  can  he  have,"  moaned  the  captain. 
"I  was  on  his  staff  for  two  years  and  I  never 
let  him  come  out  like  that.  I  always  had  him 
fixed  up  when  there  was  anything  important 
on." 

Tall,  spare,  hawk-featured  and  straight, 
Bullard  represents  a  type  of  officer  who  has  a 
large  part  to  play  in  the  American  army.  It 
is  around  such  men  that  tradition  grows  and 
tradition  is  the  marrow  of  an  army.  It  was 
Bullard,  too,  who  gave  the  best  expression  to 
the  hope  and  purpose  of  the  American  army 
which  I  heard  in  France.  He  had  said  that 
what  the  American  army  must  always  main- 
tain as  its  most  important  asset  was  the  of- 
fensive spirit  and  when  we  asked  him  just  what 
that  was  he  lapsed  into  a  story  which  was  al- 
ways his  favorite  device  for  exposition. 

"There  was  once  a  Spanish  farmer,"  said 
General  Bullard,  "who  lived  in  a  small  house 
in  the  country  with  his  pious  wife.  One  day 
he  came  rushing  out  of  the  house  with  a  valise 
in  his  hand  and  his  good  wife  stopped  him  and 
asked,  'Where  are  you  going?'  'I'm  going  to 
Seville,'  said  the  farmer  bustling  right  past 

293 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

her.  'You  mean  God  willing,'  suggested  his 
pious  wife.  'No,'  replied  the  farmer,  'I  just 
mean  that  I'm  going.' 

"The  Lord  was  angered  by  this  impiety  and 
He  promptly  changed  the  farmer  into  a  frog. 
His  wife  could  tell  that  it  was  her  husband  all 
right  because  he  was  bigger  than  any  of  the 
other  frogs  and  more  noisy.  She  went  to  the 
edge  of  the  pond  every  day  and  prayed  that 
her  husband  might  be  forgiven.  And  one 
morning — it  was  the  first  day  of  the  second 
year — the  big  frog  suddenly  began  to  swell 
and  get  bigger  and  bigger  until  he  wasn't  a 
frog  any  more,  but  a  man.  And  he  hopped 
out  of  the  pond  and  stood  on  the  bank  beside 
his  wife.  Without  stopping  to  kiss  her  or 
thank  her  or  anything  he  ran  straight  into  the 
house  and  came  out  with  a  valise  in  his  hand. 

"  'Where  are  you  going?'  his  wife  asked  in 
terror. 

"  'To  Seville,'  he  said. 

"She  wrung  her  hands.  'You  mean  God 
willing,'  she  cried. 

"  'No,'  thundered  the  farmer,  'to  Seville  or 
back  to  the  frog  pond  i'  " 

294 


THE  VETERANS  RETURN 

In  the  main,  however,  American  oflScers  and 
soldiers  were  not  very  successful  in  express- 
ing their  feelings  and  ideals  in  regard  to  the 
war.  One  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  huts  carried  on 
an  anonymous  sjTnposium  on  the  subject 
*'Why  I  joined  the  army."  Only  a  few  of  the 
answers  came  from  the  heart.  Most  of  the 
rest  were  of  two  types.  One  sort  was  swank- 
ing and  swaggering,  in  which  the  writer  un- 
consciously melodramatized  himself,  and  the 
other  was  cynical,  in  which  the  writer  betrayed 
the  fact  that  he  was  afraid  of  being  melodra- 
matic. Thus  there  was  one  man  who  an- 
swered, "To  fight  for  my  country,  the  good 
old  United  States,  the  land  of  the  free  and 
the  starry  flag  that  I  love  so  well."  "Because 
I  was  crazy,"  wrote  another  and  it  is  prob- 
able that  neither  reason  really  represented  the 
exact  feeling  of  the  man  in  question. 

Some  were  distinctly  utilitarian  such  as  that 
of  the  soldier  who  WTote  "To  improve  my  mind 
by  visiting  the  famous  churches  and  art  gal- 
leries of  the  old  world."  There  was  also  a 
simplicity  and  directness  in  "to  put  Maiden 
on  the  map."     But  the  two  which  seemed  to 

295 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

be  the  truest  of  all  were,  * 'Because  they  said 
I  wasn't  game  and  I  am  too"  and  "Because 
she'll  be  sorry  when  she  sees  my  name  in  the 
list  of  the  fellows  that  got  killed." 

For  a  time  I  was  all  muddled  up  about  the 
American  reaction  to  the  war.  Sometimes  we 
seemed  helplessly  provincial  and  then  along 
would  come  some  glorious  unhelpless  assertive- 
ness.  This  would  probably  be  in  something 
to  do  with  plumbing  or  doctoring.  Even  our 
friends  in  Europe  are  inclined  to  put  us  down 
as  materialists.  They  think  we  love  money 
more  than  anything  else  in  the  world.  I  don't 
believe  this  is  true.  I  think  we  use  money 
only  as  a  symbol  and  that  even  if  we  don't  ex- 
press them,  or  if  we  express  them  badly,  the 
American  who  fights  has  not  forgotten  to  pack 
his  ideals.  A  young  American  officer  brought 
that  home  to  me  one  day  in  Paris.  He  was  a 
doctor  from  a  thriving  factory  town  upstate. 

"You  know,"  he  began,  "this  war  is  costing 
me  thousands  of  dollars.  I  was  getting  along 
great  back  home.  A  lot  of  factories  had  me 
for  their  doctor.  My  practice  was  worth 
$15,000  a  year.     It  was  all  paid  up,  too,  you 

296 


THE  VETERANS  RETURN 

know,  workman's  compensation  stuff.  I'll 
bet  it  won't  be  worth  a  nickel  when  I  get 
back." 

He  sat  and  drummed  on  the  table  and 
looked  out  on  the  street  and  a  couple  of  Por- 
tuguese went  by  in  their  slate  gray  uniforms 
and  then  some  Russians,  with  their  marvelous 
tunics,  which  Bakst  might  have  designed; 
there  were  French  aviators  in  black  and  red, 
and  rollicking  Australians,  an  Italian,  look- 
ing glum,  and  a  Roumanian  with  a  girl  on  his 
arm. 

"Did  j^ou  ever  read  'Ivanhoe'?"  said  the  man 
with  the  $15,000  practice,  fiercely  and  sud- 
denly. 

I  nodded. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "when  I  was  a  boy  I  read 
that  book  five  times.  I  thought  it  was  the 
greatest  book  in  the  world,  and  I  guess  it  is, 
and  all  this  reminds  me  of  'Ivanhoe.'  " 

"Of  'Ivanhoe'?"  I  said. 

"Yes,  you  know,  all  this,"  and  he  made  an 
expansive  gesture,  "Verdun,  and  Joffre,  and 
'they  shall  not  pass,'  and  Napoleon's  tomb, 
and  war  bread,  and  all  the  men  with  medals 

297 


THE  A.  E.  F. 

and  everything.  Great  stuff!  There'll  never 
be  anything  like  it  in  the  world  again.  I  tell 
you  it's  better  than  'Ivanhoe.'  Everything's 
happening  and  I'm  in  it.  I'm  in  a  little  of 
it,  anyway.  And  if  I  have  a  chance  to  get  in 
something  big  I  don't  care  what  happens.  No, 
sir,  if  I  could  just  help  to  give  the  old  Boche 
a  good  wallop  I  wouldn't  care  if  I  never  got 

back.     Why,   I  wouldn't  miss  this  for " 

His  eyes  were  sparkling  with  excitement  now 
and  he  was  straining  for  adequate  expression. 
He  brought  his  fist  down  on  the  table  until 
the  glasses  rattled.  "I  wouldn't  miss  this  for 
$50,000  cash,"  he  said. 


(3) 


True  Stories  of  the  War 


MEN,  WOMEN  AND  WAR 

By  Will  Irwix,  author  of  "The  Latin  at  War." 

With  the  inquisitiveness  of  the  reporter  and  the  pen  of  an 
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for  his  homeland;  the  regenerated  French  defending  their 
country  against  the  invader,  and  the  im.perturbable  English, 
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By  Will  Irwi^t^  author  of  "Men,  Women  and  War." 

No  correspondent  "at  the  front"  has  found  more  stories  of 
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ized while  he  wrote." — The  Outlook,  New  York. 

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of  the  writer's  unfailing  sense  of  humor,  of  pathos,  and  of 
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II 


UNDER  FOUR  FLAGS  FOR  FRANCE 

By  Captain  George  Clarke  Musgrave 

What  Captain  Musgrave  saw  as  an  observer  on  the  "Western 
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TO  BAGDAD  WITH  THE  BRITISH 

By  Arthur  T.  Clark 

Here  is  the  first  accurate  account  of  the  thrilling  campaign 
in  Mesopotamia.  The  author  was  a  member  of  the  British 
Expeditionary  Forces  and  saw  the  wild  rout  of  the  Turks 
from  Kut-el-Amara  to  Bagdad.  His  book  brings  home  the 
absorbing  story  of  this  important  part  of  the  war,  and 
shows  the  real  soldier  Tommy  Atkins  is. 

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OUT  THERE 

By  Charles  W.  Whitehaib 

This  is  a  story  by  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  worker,  who  has  seen  ser- 
vice at  the  front  with  the  English  and  French  soldiers,  in 
Egypt,  Flanders,  England  and  Scotland  and  who  has  wit- 
nessed some  of  the  greatest  battles  of  the  present  war. 

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UllllilllllilllllllillllllilllllllillllllllllllilllllllllllllllllllllllllP^ 

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AMERICAN  WOMEN  AND  THE  WORLD  WAR 

By  Ida  Clyde  Claeke 

This  is  a  splendid  story,  brimming  witli  interest,  telling  how 
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GREAT  BRITAIN'S  PART 

By  Paul  D.  Ceavath 

In  brief  compass  the  author  tells  what  Great  Britain  has 
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war  few  other  writers  have  more  than  touched  upon. 
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OUT  OF  THEIR  OWN  MOUTHS 

With  an  introduction  by  Willlam  Ro8Coe  Thatee 

To  prove  conclusively  the  identity  of  the  aggressors  in  the 
great  war,  and  their  ultimate  aims  this  book  has  been  pre- 
pared from  the  offiicial  documents,  speeches,  letters  and 
hundreds  of  unofficial  statements  of  German  leaders.  With 
few  exceptions,  the  extracts  included  in  this  collection  are 
taken  directly  from  the  German. 

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